Rule of Three
by Wotcherer
Summary: "I was waiting for you to ask, but you don't like to ask for things, do you?" Patience Mount before we knew her, and her journey to and with Delia.
1. Juvenile

A/N: This is an expansion on my fic Bunk Down, exploring Patsy's backstory right up until we reach the present day and, of course, Delia.

* * *

Three Green Bottles

 ** _New Year's Eve, 1941._**

Patience was growing tired, but was reveling in being allowed to join the festivities, her presence going rather unnoticed by the grown ups, who seemed to have been gripped by an all consuming joy, tainted by the slightest bit of silliness, as they often were when her mother threw parties. She weaved between taller figures towards the tray of canapés that were still left, plucking one up and popping it into her mouth unnoticed. There was a brewing excitement in the air for midnight to arrive, signaling a new year, but Patience wasn't sure she would be quite able to stay awake until then, as much as she wanted to.

She spotted mummy, knowing not to bother her too much at these kind of things, lest she not be permitted to shuffle between guests, to gaze upon the merriment, unable to wait until she was old enough to wear a dress as elegant as the other women around her, none more so than her own mother. She wore daring deep purple, and her finest pearls, Patience's favourites, the ones that she was under no circumstances to take from the jewelry box and fiddle with, which gave them a sort of allure. Mummy said that they would be hers one day, and that Nancy would have her pick too.

Daddy would say she was in her element here, which apparently meant it was what she did best. Opening the house for parties, organizing soirees at Raffles, charity balls and events for the high-ranking army men – that was mummy's domain. Patience marveled in her mother's glamour, and it was evident that others did too. Her mother spotted her, grinning from ear to ear, "Darling girl!" She strode over to her, crouching down to give her a warm hug – something she wouldn't usually do in front of guests, as doting and loving as she was. Patience wrapped her arms around mummy, breathing in the smell of her perfume. "I thought daddy had put you to bed."

"He's in the drawing room." She had peeked through a gap in the door earlier, spotting her father reclining with a cigar, talking to a friend, probably about rather boring things – 'business' and the like.

Her mother rolled her eyes, "Honestly, that man. He's with Sir Raynott, no doubt. They'll have plenty of time to talk, they'll be on the same boat all the way to England." She shook her head. "Oh!" She gasped gleefully, her laugh chiming. "Gerald!" She turned to father's friend, and Patience gaped, at the man who had seemed to have attacked a rather large bottle with a sword, the liquid frothing from it as he struggled to get it into glasses. "Honestly, old thing, stop waving that saber around in here." She quipped.

"Mummy, can I try?" She sensed that her mother wasn't quite expecting the kind of behaviour from her that she usually would – the fact she was still out of bed underlined that well enough.

"Oh Patience, there's rather a knack to it I'm afraid." She said, giving her the impression that mummy was rather a dab hand at such things. "I know, we'll open one without the sword, shall we? It's frightful fun anyway."

Patience grinned from ear to ear, not quite believing her luck, as her mother swiped a bottle of champagne from a table that was rather full of them. "After this is straight off to bed – do I have your word?" She nodded firmly, reaching for the bottle. It was heavy, and her confidence slightly waned as those in the parlour began to look at her, seemingly finding the sight somewhat adorable. "You must aim it away from you…and everyone else for that matter. Right all, stand back. We don't want anyone's eye taken out." A few chuckled, and Patience attempted to pull the cork but it seemed rather stuck. Perhaps it really was the best thing to do just to chop the top off with a sword, she pondered.

"Come here, sweetheart." Her mother stood behind her, holding the bottle so she was free to tug at it with all her might. After gathering her strength, the cork went flying across the room, hitting the wall and rebounding with some force as everyone cheered, and the champagne began to spill from the bottle. Her mother took it from her quickly, pouring it into glasses before it could soak the floor. She could barely contain her grin. "Very good, Patience. But I think that's quite enough excitement for one night, don't you?"

"Can I try-"

"Absolutely not." Her mother said firmly, "You haven't caught me off guard quite enough for that, and won't for some many years." She ushered her towards the stairs, and Patience reluctantly let her.

"How many years?" She asked.

"Hmm, let's see. Shall we agree on your sixteenth birthday? I think that'll be appropriate." Her mother mused to herself. "But please, darling, you mustn't grow up too quickly, I couldn't stand it." Her mother said with a hint of sadness. She knew that when she was thirteen she would be going to school in England, away from her mother and father. She had just about managed to escape prep school, due to mummy's protestations that nine was far too young for her to be away from her family and that Nancy would be lonely. Patience hadn't weighed in on the argument – her mother had fought her corner efficiently enough – but she had silently agreed.

Her mother flicked off her high heels as they entered Patience's room, taking the pins out of her daughter's hair after seating her on the bed. "Mummy, why does daddy have to go to England? He's going to miss your ball for the soldiers." So was Patience, for that matter. She wasn't allowed to attend mummy's charity parties, only the ones in the house that were for their friends.

"Well, darling," She started, whilst unbuttoning her dress for her. "Daddy's partner in England is rather on his way out, you remember Mr. Cheverell, don't you? Anyway, he's quite old now, and he's not very well. Your father has to go and sort his affairs out with him, rather urgently really, before he passes away."

Patience sighed; wishing daddy didn't have to go away. He was so often busy, but when he wasn't they had such tremendous fun together. The war in Europe seemed to be taking up even more of his time, as apparently it had 'complicated things with shipping', and he seemed so terribly grumpy and frustrated whenever she saw him, but never with Nancy or her.

"Into bed then, chop chop." Mummy flung back the covers, "I know it's a little loud downstairs, but do try to sleep." She climbed underneath the sheets, watching her mother as she opened the window, and then pulled the net across it. "Now, darling girl, mummy loves you so very dearly." She bent down and pressed a kiss to her forehead, stroking her hair.

"I love you too, mummy." Patience smiled, drawing the covers over herself, the excitement of the late evening washing over her, as well as the tiredness of having been out of bed for much longer than she had ever been allowed to before. It would be the last time Patience ever saw her mother being her best self – so social, charming and glamourous that she could hold the attention of an entire room by just gliding into it. That image of her mother was soon to fade away, though it would always be the one that Patience would urge herself to think on whenever memories of the woman who had brought her life – and had fought so desperately to allow her to cling onto it – cropped up in her mind, as they so often would.

 ** _February, 1945._**

Patience dared not admit it to anyone, even herself, but her father's arrival wasn't something she had relished in as much as everyone around her had expected her too, including the man himself. She was a shrewd girl, highly adept at understanding what people around her wanted of her, and much of the time she was very good at playing along with it. She had tried to be happy when she saw him, and was rather successful at doing so, but sensed that he was doing the same. Of course, it was obvious enough that he was relieved she was alive, but he had only just learned before setting off for Singapore that Patience was the only one he would be returning with, so she supposed it was taking him some time to get over the shock. She'd had much longer to get used to the idea that mummy and Nancy were no longer with her, but was still having trouble adjusting to the fact that she wasn't going to die as well, and that everything she had known for three years was now a part of her past – well, as much as she could make it so, and god knows she would try.

She knew that she should be pleased to go to England, to start her knew life, in comfort and health, but it felt like she was leaving her family. The women and children she had lived alongside in these past years were all she had in the entire world, apart from her meager possessions – her mother's compact and her own diary. And of course now two sets of clothes, a nightdress, a toothbrush and hairbrush, courtesy of the crown. Even at this age, she had it in her to be just a little bitter, to ask why the far off country that she had never really known hadn't been able to save them sooner. The point was, the women from the camp were the only people who knew who she was now, and she was well aware enough that upon returning home she'd be expected to slot into her father's life in the way that he wanted her to. Patience knew that it was the best way, but she also felt like she needed more time to get used to the idea.

They sat opposite each other at a table in Raffles, clutching menus. She let her eyes flicker over the dishes, still not quite over the choice of food now available to her, the tastes and the textures. She'd told herself she'd try everything on the menu, everything that didn't have rice that is, because she was never, ever, eating rice again. It had been three weeks since the liberation, and she'd made her way through the hotel's menu rather well, her eyes happened upon the next dish she was going to try, resisting the temptation to return to some of her favourites. Her heart sunk though, when she struggled over the words. It definitely wasn't a Singaporean dish, so that couldn't be why she didn't understand it.

"What is it, Patience?" Her father asked, placing his menu down. "Can you not read?" He asked.

She clenched her jaw, "I can." She said firmly. Her mother had made sure of it that she continued learning, and the women were constantly swapping the little literature they had. If anything she'd been forced to read books harder than she should have been able to manage due to the limited supply there was.

"Show me." He held out his menu, waiting for her to point out the offending dish that had her stumped. Reluctantly, she reached out, showing him.

"Oh, that's gigot d'agneau pleureur – lamb. It's French, of course you can't read it. Don't worry, you'll learn French at school, and I'm sure you'll catch up in no time at all."

She breathed a sign of relief, though was slightly worried to not have realised that it was a different language she couldn't make sense of, and not her own. She hadn't read very much at all, or tried to keep up with her studies in the camp, since her mother had died. "Can I have that?"

"If you so wish, Patience. Rather a large meal for lunch though." He said. "After this, we're going to the house to see what the Japs have done with the place." He added with a touch of irony.

Patience didn't want to go, she wanted to stay here with the women. Some of them were leaving soon, and some of them had already left. She wanted to be around people who knew what she was feeling right now, how strange everything seemed. There were no boundaries, no fences, and enough space to run and run forever unless the sea got in your way. If she wanted water that she wasn't afraid would kill her, she only had to twist a tap and out it would come – hot if she wanted, cold if not. Everything and everyone was clean, even though it had felt like it would take an age for the dirt to budge under her fingernails.

They sat in relative silence until their food was brought, her father saying that after that they would go shopping, clearly trying to cheer up with the suggestion that he buy her some nicer new dresses and shoes, and some long socks to cover the bandages on her legs. He stopped talking though, when he seemed to realize that very little he could say was going to enthrall her, or make her act like a little girl. "Patience." Her father said, rather sharply, and she flinched, glancing up at him, not knowing what she'd done. "We'll have to get you a governess right away, another thing to sort out I suppose. I'll send a telegram to your aunt and have her arrange for a suitable one."

"What is it, daddy?"

"You simply cannot eat like that." But she had been using her knife and fork, hadn't she? It had been such a struggle when she'd arrived at the hotel, and so embarrassing to have to be helped cut up her food, not having used cutlery in years. She was still a little clumsy, but she was getting there – that's what Louise had said. "Elbows on the table, mouth wide open, in a hotel of all places."

She shrunk at the criticism, not saying a word as she slipped her elbows off the table and placed her hands neatly in her lap, sitting up straight. Her appetite was suddenly gone, the sick feeling that came when she ate too much or had something too rich overcoming her after only a few mouthfuls. It felt foreign for this man to be telling her what to do, acting like her parent. For so long he has become this figure of hope in her life – _we're going to return to England with daddy soon, just you wait. Oh, and he'll be so pleased to see us, all of us –_ but had also taken on an mythical quality, and now she felt like she didn't know him.

Later that day they waited outside Raffles for one of daddy's friends who had a car, watching the pulled rickshaws and people pass by. She wished that he'd let her stay with the women here, with people that didn't care if she cried in front of them, as she so wanted to now. She wasn't even sharing a room with them anymore, her father suggesting that she needed peace and quiet after her ordeal, and renting them a suite in the hotel, but the silence was daunting, and she sensed that he didn't think many of the women appropriate company – some of them swore and they were what he would call common. She didn't want to admit either that she was tired, and still so, so sore, and she suspected that daddy didn't want to believe that she was either. He had looked away when he had seen the ulcers on her legs when her dressings were changed. When Rodney's car pulled up, someone who she was apparently supposed to recognise, it was him who noticed she struggled to climb into the car.

"Get into the backseat, old boy!" He told her father, "Let the girl feel the wind in her hair." He picked her up under the arms and placed her into the front seat, garnering a small smile. Rodney drove quickly to the point of recklessness, chatting cheerfully to her father, overcome by the glee of the war being over, being happy to return to his business in Singapore, trying to distract her father from his misery in a way that Patience couldn't. He included her in the conversation occasionally, saying the right things – the first person she'd met outside of the camp that had been able to do so. He didn't talk about her frightening future, where she was destined to live a life that felt like it might have far off, maybe even non-existent, familiarity, but mostly that she didn't know how to navigate. And he didn't talk about the past. He mentioned the flowers and the trees they passed, naming them – in Latin too – he explained to her what his business was, and asked her what she liked. When she answered that she liked to read, he said he would have some books on plants sent to the hotel for her. She liked that he was bringing her back the present, back to the real world, in a gentle way.

"I'll wait outside, shall I?" He said as he stopped outside the house.

The building was huge, it almost didn't seem like it could be a home, let alone hers – once. White, or a least it was some time ago, with paint peeling, and darkness behind the windows. The tiles beneath their feet had some cracked or missing among them, and the door was ajar, no need to force it. Her father pushed it open. It wasn't a total wreck, but it had been lived in. There were things of theirs still there, things she vaguely recognized, and distinctly Japanese decorations and furnishings. It looked like it had been left in a hurry though – it wasn't obvious, just a feeling she'd got, a memory for when mummy had been rushing around the house, grabbing things, important things to take to the camp, most of which she hadn't been able to hide and had been stolen from them eventually. She hoped bitterly that the Jap who'd lived here, probably a high-ranking military official, was going to be punished like so many of the others were.

"Come, Patience." Her father beckoned her, drawing her out of her daze as he ascended the stairs. He sighed and shook his head as he noticed large squares on the wall, lighter and cleaner than the rest of it, indicating paintings removed. Her mother had loved art, and no doubt most of the most valuable pieces had gone. She trailed him into the room daddy and mummy used to share, overcome at the sight of it. Their bed was unmade, a silk Japanese throw crumpled at one end, her father picking it up and inspecting it with his thumb and his forefinger, and dropping it like it had put a bad taste in his mouth. He opened the drawers of the dresser, peering in them, slamming the last one in apparent exasperation. He looked enraged, and she hovered nervously in the doorway. Then he bent down at the floorboards, lifting one up, and then another. She had never known they had a secret passageway. As she stepped closer, she realised the cavern contained a safe, the door of which threw he shut with a bang.

"Bloody bastards." He muttered, and she pretended not to have heard. "They took _everything_." She sensed he meant more than just their valuable things, and in that moment she hated them more than she ever had. More than when they left for the camp and walked for days and days, more than when she was hungrier than she ever had been and ever would be again, more than when her mother was punished for harbouring her possessions, not out of sentimentality, but because she could trade them for food and medicine, more than when her best friend Geraldine had died, more than when mummy had died and then Nancy even though she promised that she would care for her. Because now, she couldn't be happy, and the whole time in the camp she thought that she would be, one day, but it just didn't seem possible anymore.

Before they wandered into the next room, and the next, she spotted something in one of the drawers daddy had left open – a small, square bottle. It was nearly empty, just a little perfume left. She opened it, and breathed in the smell, familiarity washing over her. It read Chanel on it, and the scent was distinctly the same as the one that that overwhelmed her nose when mummy bent down to hug her – before the camps of course. She clutched the bottle in her hand, and decided that whatever daddy salvaged from the house, whatever he had shipped back to England as a relic of their old life, this was coming with her.

 ** _March, 1946._**

Patience found it impossible to tell whether or not she preferred being at school. The fact she had started late was an understatement – she had joined in the middle of the second term of the final year of prep, but she supposed it was better to get used to the whole affair before going to finishing school, as it would have been rather a lot to catch up on. She felt happier to be surrounded by other children, rather than just her ghastly governess and miserable father, who seemed less able to look her in the eye as the weeks went on and on. He had wanted her to feel better, to start being a child, but as much as she desired to be the person he expected her to, she couldn't pull it off. Even when she pretended there was an unmistakable sadness in her eyes, and it was always obviously a farce.

Her governess had caught her up with her studies sufficiently enough, and taught her manners, which she had picked up quickly. Her French was almost as good as everyone else's, though her Latin was still atrocious. Reading and arithmetic were fine though, but she was especially lost on Religious Studies. Catholics, Christians, those who clung to god like a lifeline, and those who denounced him as spiteful, and even a couple who had never believed in him before the camp, hadn't made for a coherent strategy on the spiritual education of the children. Her mother had stopped praying, and she had noticed after a while that she didn't kneel before her bed night after night anymore. Perhaps because she was exhausted and needed sleep, or perhaps because she was angry with God. She had prayed when Nancy got so terribly sick though, prayed for her daughter and not for herself right up until the moment she couldn't form words.

Patience didn't like prayer – it reminded her of the futility of the act, and only did so meaningfully when she was truly desperate, unable to think of another thing that would relieve her, but in the back of her mind she knew it was still silly. She had to do it at school though, every night, along with the other girls. So she found herself praying for things she knew would probably happen anyway, and that she wouldn't be beside herself if they didn't – that Beatrice would have a lovely birthday, that her house would win hockey cuppers, that she'd do well in a test – and that way, she had something she could feel less bitter about.

She was curled up in the most comfortable chair in the common room, glad to have nabbed it, _Seventeenth Summer_ open in her lap. One of the other girls had borrowed it to her, recommending it highly. She was finding it rather dull, unable to understand why the protagonist was so hung up on her boyfriend, wondering why anyone would bother to write a book about something so utterly unexciting. She decided to only read enough of it to sufficiently pretend she knew plenty about it to Phyllis when she prodded her with questions on the novel, and resolved to delve into one of the books Rodney had sent her. He was living in Australia now, just like Louise, and though so very far away, neither of them had forgotten about her like she feared they would.

Daddy couldn't understand why she still wrote to Louise – he hadn't liked her because she was loud and assertive, not to mention she used foul language, and he so desperately wanted Patience to let go of it all, but she couldn't. Her nurse friend was studying to be a doctor now, at least for the time being, but she wrote to Patience like she was an adult, perhaps because she knew she had seen so much, and told her with honesty that she couldn't stand her classes, having more experience with emergency and tropical medicine that even the person who was teaching her. She'd amputated a foot by herself when Dr. Doreen had been down with malaria, and yet her peers were talking her down to her because she was a woman. In her last letter she had said she was considering going back to nursing, abroad though, somewhere where her now very specific and expert skill set would be useful.

Harriet was trailed by some friends into the common room, and gave Patsy a glance as they occupied the sofa. She couldn't read whilst they chatted, but she continued to pretend to. She found herself unbothered by who liked her. She didn't yearn for acceptance. She didn't show enough excitement and warmth towards those who were friendly to her for them to continue coming back to her with the same level of enthusiasm, so thus Patience found herself surrounded by people she talked to happily enough, but no bosom buddies, and a good few people who thought her aloof and offish, Harriet included. She wondered if she'd ever feel able to get along with girls her own age without forcing herself too – they all seemed so terribly, giddily happy all the time, squealing and laughing and whispering, or sobbing over the most ridiculous thing. Emotions of the extreme over very little – she had no time for that.

"I say, Patience." Harriet started, the other girls around her, Francine, Cecelia and Mary looking surprised at their friend even talking to her. "What did _you_ have for supper this evening?"

She tightened her jaw, trying not to react. She closed her book, reasoning with herself that it was natural for people to wonder why someone was being treated differently, and if it was for a special reason that didn't apply to them. "I had oat broth, and then liver with an egg." Then she added sarcastically. "In fact, I think they skimped on the jam in my semolina." Today definitely hadn't been a day where her dinner had been preferable to that given to the other girls, that was for sure. She was glad of it, because Harriet seemed to wrinkle her nose.

"But _why_?"

Patience resisted the urge to roll her eyes deep into the back of her skull at Henrietta's incessant whining voice, wishing she'd found a quiet hallway to read in before lights out instead. Then she gave the answer she always gave, "Because before I came to school I wasn't very well, and now I have to eat specific foods with certain vitamins in them." She hoped that would satisfy the irritating young woman's curiosity.

"What was wrong with you?"

She openly sighed this time, not masking her displeasure. "I had a deficiency in Thiamine." She didn't want to say malnourishment, but she also didn't want to lie.

"And calcium?" The other girl continued.

"What?" She said shortly.

Henrietta gestured to the bottle on the table that was between them, "You get given so much milk."

It was true – the foolish school nurse seemed to have it in her head that she ought to be drinking her body weight in milk everyday because Calcium was good for children. Of course it was, but it wasn't the problem. It was vitamin B1 that she needed. She didn't argue with the woman though, there was no point – if she did, her father would know about her insolence, her resistance the total recovery he so desperately wanted her to have. So she continued to go and see her, to be weighed and have her height measured. The nurse would occasionally try to engage her in conversation about it, but she would resist, painting on a smile and saying how much she was enjoying herself to ensure a quick escape.

"I don't want it, you have it." She said, standing up and excusing herself quickly, climbing the stairs to her dorm room. Luckily none of the five beds had someone seated on them, and she quickly occupied hers, crossing her legs and gazing out the window in somewhat of a daze. The fields and the clouds warped as she directed her eyes through the two milk bottles she had arranged on the windowsill – that was all they were good for – and the wildflowers she regularly placed in them. One for her mother, and one for her sister.


	2. Adolescent

Three Bags Full

 ** _December, 1949._**

"You're really not going home for Christmas, Patsy?" Victoria asked for what seemed like the one-hundredth time. The curly brunette seemed unable to understand that she really ought to stop prying, and she could tell that the other girl was desperate to know her reasoning. Victoria had a funny, nay, utterly unhumorous, way of trying desperately to find out her business. Unfortunately for other girl, she didn't particularly have much of it. She enjoyed a bottle of wine or swig of scotch with some of the girls she was closer to when they could get away with it, she sneaked a cigarette in where she could, she wandered out of bed after hours to go and join one of the more livelier dorm rooms than her own, but other than that her life was utterly unremarkable. She didn't have any grievances with any of the girls here, none of her relationships here were of such a depth that they would lead to bickering or gossip, and that was the way she liked it. However, it left her something of an enigma to girls like Victoria, whose whole world seemed to revolve around socialising and status within the school.

She turned to Victoria, lifting her head out of King Lear – getting a head start on her English work for next term. "No, I'm not." She said, not too curtly but perhaps with just enough impatience that she would stop asking such silly questions. "Do you mind if I have a cigarette?" She added, wishing she'd asked before she had shot Victoria's curiosity down.

The other girl shrugged, "I'm going home today, so Sarge will think it was you anyway." Sarge was their nickname for matron – a frightful old woman called Jacqueline. She didn't have much of a problem with Patsy though, she'd always found herself able to get along with her teachers and superiors at school. She wasn't a blatant rule breaker, only reserved her cheek for girls in her year who irritated her, and her restrained, unfussy way seemed to endear them to her over more giddy, frantic types like her dorm mate. Victoria continued to fold her clothes, out of uniform now, ready for her parents, or whomever they had sent, to pick her up. "Most people are leaving. Won't you get lonely?" She asked, "With only Sarge and the nuns for company?"

"I don't think so. I'll just work, I suppose." She reasoned bluntly. Last year when she had remained at school, they had eaten a solemn and unfussy Christmas dinner. The nuns by no means celebrated the holiday frivolously, and that was something she appreciated. For them it held symbolic and religious meaning, and when she distanced herself from all of that she could pretend it was just another day with a particularly large and long meal. It was the best way, better than being home with her father, whilst they both mourned the loss of their family. In another world, a better one, they would visit their graves, lay some flowers, pay their respects. But Patsy suspected that the wilderness had long since claimed back her mother and sister and the crude wooden crosses that had once marked them out in a corner of the camp that was a cruel reminder of everything bad in this world.

Victoria huffed, "I don't suppose you make much effort with anyone anyway."

It wasn't that she didn't make effort – she was friendly enough. She just had a tendency to hate complaining. What did anyone here have to complain about? Well to do young ladies in an excellent school, who would all go on to make well to do marriages and produce well to do children. Girls who didn't want for anything, yet boiled with jealousy at another whose parents were richer – that's what made them felt hard done by? She simply couldn't always pretend to be okay with that kind of nonsense. She supposed they weren't all like that, but too many of them were, and she rarely gave anyone a chance long enough to let her distinguish that fact.

"If you say so." She shrugged, getting back to act two of her play and placing a cigarette between her lips, lighting it smoothly.

Snubbed and frustrated, Victoria continued, with Patsy attempting so very hard _not_ to roll her eyes, "Lucilla said its because you don't get along with your father, that's why you don't go home."

Lucilla was in a dorm with her in second year, with two other girls, and she had rather liked her at the time. Not anymore though. "Just because we share a room it does not mean you're entitled to know every detail of my life. If you must know, at the risk of sounding an awful swot, I rather wish to maintain my grades. I see no better way than to remain here and study without the incessant moaning of certain girls at this school." Patsy delivered flatly.

Victoria's eyes blazed, "You're awfully rude, Patience Mount. Did you know that?"

"No, I just wouldn't say that behind someone's back. It's called honesty." She retorted with a sigh. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to find an empty classroom - it's a cacophony of whinging in this room." She stubbed out her cigarette, leaving it in the inconspicuous cup she placed by her bed in lieu of an ashtray. "Good luck packing, and I do hope you enjoy your Christmas." And with that, Patsy snapped her book shut and exited the room into the hallway, trying to mask the annoyance on her face.

"Someone's in a hurry to go home!" She had stridden headlong into someone, their mug crashing to the ground. She glanced at it, in one piece, but empty on the floor with tea rapidly soaking the carpet, and then up at the person she had manage to assault. It was Clarissa Dupont, a girl in her year, another prefect, but not in the same house as her. Patsy spoke to her often, she had to because of their duties – especially at the beginning of this term with the new first years. She didn't mind Clarissa, in fact she didn't mind her one bit. She was extraordinarily pretty – blonde, green-eyed, and always impeccably turned out. She was the target of much affection, male and female alike. The boys at stared at her from the pitches when they watched each other's games, and the girls here were desperate to be her friend, but she seemed rather above it all and Patsy thought she was a kindred spirit in that sense. The only problem was she was always too afraid and embarrassed to speak to her – it was ridiculous really.

"I-I'm not going home." She started. "I'm going to read." _Blast._ She wished she had said something less silly – perhaps that she was going to sneak a cigarette behind the equipment shed, or that she had fencing practice, or that she was going for a walk and maybe Clarissa could join her. _No, that would have been a stupid thing to say._ "I'm sorry…about the tea…did it burn you? I-"

"Quite alright." She smiled, bending down to pick up the mug, waving her hand at the mess, "That carpet has seen far worse, I'm sure. It's dark so it won't stain. Did you say you're not going home? Are you leaving tomorrow then?"

What was it with everyone's surprise about her holiday plans? So what if she wanted to spend Christmas with Sarge and the nuns? She never had understood the particular quirk of her countrymen and women that led them to pretend so hard that they liked their family when they didn't. Or perhaps it was universal, but she didn't care for it. Still though, she didn't get annoyed with Clarissa for asking like she did with Victoria. "No, I'm not going home at all."

"Oh, I say. I'm not going home until the twenty-second. I thought I'd have no company, but now I'll have you." Patsy couldn't help but smile, all of a sudden not too disappointed that her plan to essentially mirror the nuns in their vows of silence and peace was out the window.

"That'll be nice." Patsy managed to say without tripping over her words. "And I am sorry, about bumping into you."

"Oh, do stop apologizing. Quite the honour to be bulldozed by the school hockey captain, to be honest. Now I know why the other girls on the pitch fear you." She quipped with a smirk. "I suppose I'll see you soon. I'll knock on you, the rooms here are bigger than in our corridor so we'll call it a date at yours." Patsy clutched King Lear to her chest, carrying on down the corridor with a soft smile, quite looking forward to the start of the holidays now.

 ** _March, 1950._**

A crowd of girls was forming around someone, and Patsy, further downfield in her position as right wing jogged over, wondering who had fallen, and who was making a fuss this time. She pushed through the group, only to see Daphne hunched over on the floor, a forced grin on her face. "Quite alright, chaps. Nothing too serious." A few of the girls were sniggering, and Patsy frowned. Her new roommate had grown on her rather quickly, and was a vast improvement on Queen Vic. She was almost glad that her nighttime disturbances were persisting to the point where the snotty girl had begged for a change. Daphne was a sweet person really, oblivious to the social norms and hierarchy that had been constructed by the girls around her, or perhaps just not interested in them. She never seemed to let their gossiping and snickering get to her, or maybe it was that she was good at pretending. But nevertheless, Patsy was defensive of her.

"Move." Patsy said bluntly to Lucille, extending a hand as no one else had to Daphne.

"Thanks, old thing." She grasped it, and though Patsy was bigger and stronger than her, she still couldn't help her to stand up. As she slumped down again there was another grating chorus of chortling.

" _What_ is all this fuss about, ladies?" Mrs. Keaton the games teacher had marched over, piercing through the crowd and sighing at the sight of Daphne on the floor. "Daphne Bowden-Grey, what are you doing? Are you _actually_ hurt or are you just having a little rest?" The giggling of the girls grew more obvious, louder.

She stalled for a moment, her cheerful and confident exterior fading in the presence of the assertive young teacher, before Patsy answered, "She can't get up, Mrs. Keaton. I didn't see what happened though." She said, glancing around at the girls, expecting them to shed light on the situation.

The games teacher sighed, bending down to inspect Daphne. It became clear quite quickly, that under her games skirt, the girl's knee was bleeding profusely. Her classmates cringed at the raw looking injury, looking away, but Patsy didn't. There was blood dripping down her leg, showing no signs of stopping – in fact, she couldn't believe that the girl wasn't making more of a fuss about it, she didn't appear to be anywhere near tears. She just raised her eyebrows, "Cripes, would you look at that."

"I'd rather not, Miss Bowden-Grey. That is quite a gash." Mrs. Keaton acknowledged, her tone toward Daphne softening. "Someone escort her to the nurse's office."

There were no volunteers, but there didn't need to be for Patsy to pipe up. "I'll take her." Daphne looked up at her gratefully, still trying not to grimace though. There were sounds of protestations from the girls who'd been on her side. "Patsy, you're our best player!" Honestly, it was a non-competitive games class practice session, and she didn't care.

"Mount doesn't need the practice, which is more than can be said for some of you. Besides, Daphne was on the other team, so there are still even sides. Now if you aren't back on that field within the next ten seconds, your matron will know about it."

Between her and Mrs. Keaton, they got Daphne on her feet, with one arm slung over Patsy's shoulders, which she had to stoop a bit to even be possible. As soon as the girls were back into their game, and the attention off of her, she let the pain that Patsy knew had existed all along show. "Are you alright? What happened?"

"Me? Fine." She limped, most of her weight on Patsy. "I'm just no good at hockey, in fact, no good at games at all. Not my forte, never was – clumsy as a newborn calf." She rambled as per usual.

Patsy sighed, "Who tripped you over?"

Daphne paused for a moment, "I won't say." She said. Perhaps because she knew that Patsy would give them a piece of her mind this evening – oh what she would say to them, she had a few choice words left over from her days in the camps, and she wouldn't be afraid to employ them in these circumstances. But she knew it was more likely that for Daphne it was bridge under the water. The other girl would hold no grudges, and she didn't want anyone getting in trouble, with teachers or with Patsy alike. "You don't have to stick up for me. You think I care, but I'm like you, I really don't. It's just an inconvenience to think of something jolly to say when someone's being foul to you."

"But you always do." Patsy remarked. "Has it stopped bleeding?" She asked.

"Slowing, I think. Wait, where are you going?"

"To the nurse's office."

"No, no. I don't want to see the nurse. Anyway, I have to get my bag from the changing rooms."

Daphne really should see the nurse, and Patsy knew it, but she supposed they could get her bag and then she could try to convince her as they slowly made their way back to the school. "You have to let me see to it then." She'd had enough experience to know how to patch up a nasty scrape, and was already deep into a thick nursing textbook that Louise had ordered to her address at school for her once she had confessed her ambition to study it as soon as she left. Daphne agreed, but continued to persist that they just had to get her bag.

Patsy pushed open the door of the eternally draughty changing rooms, and eased Daphne down onto one of the benches. The other girl pointed out her bag, and Patsy grabbed it to save her getting up, holding it out to her. "You're not getting changed are you? You'll just get your uniform all bloody."

"No, I'm getting this." She produced a slip of paper from it, and when Patsy looked confused she seemed to relent. "I met one of the boys just before games, behind the equipment shed. He told me to meet him there so he could give me a note, and some of the girls saw."

She couldn't help but feel a pang of something that she couldn't put her finger on at that revelation. Daphne had never had any regard for rules though, and was often escaping the boarding house in the small hours to run off across the pitches to meet with the boys, to have a drink and a smoke and a bit of adventure. Despite her gently curious questions, Daphne seemed to maintain that they were all simply her friends and that she wasn't interested in any of them one bit. Why go through so much risk for no romantic reward, she didn't understand – it wasn't what any of the other girls would do. But Daphne was a strange one, and perhaps she did it for the fun and the risk of it all. Patsy had been convinced she'd been lying at first, when she'd insisted she'd never so much as let one of them put their arm around her, but she had soon gotten to know the girl and had realised she always, always told the truth, to the point of brutal but appreciated honesty.

She understood now, some of those girls were jealous creatures, "I see, one of them tripped you so they could get into your bag and read it."

"Spot on." Daphne said.

"I know," Patsy smiled coyly, wanting to get the girls who had done it back in her own way, even if Daphne wouldn't let her rip into them full steam. She grabbed Daphne's bag and replaced it exactly where it had been, and then grabbed a piece of paper and pen from her own belongings.

 _I'll find out who tripped Daphne, and when I do, hell hath no fury like a hockey captain scorned. Watch yourselves. All my ire, Lord Mountbatten._

After quickly penning the note, she placed it in Daphne's bag, and shot her a wicked smile. "What did you write?" She was grinning now, genuinely, her pain momentarily forgotten.

"I wrote 'better luck next time'." She lied seamlessly, though it seemed to earn the happiness of the other girl despite her downplaying her true intentions.

When they returned to their room, Patsy washed and dressed Daphne's knee with genuine care. She felt sorry for the other girl, though she supposed she shouldn't – she didn't seem phased, and it made her wonder what the other girls had said and done to her before they had gotten to know each other. Of course, she had always heard them discussing what an oddball she was, giggling all the while, making fun of her preference for her brother's old slacks and simply pulling her hair back into a ponytail. She'd never joined in, but she felt guilty that she had never defended her back then.

"You've done an awfully good job on me, Mountbatten. Where did you learn to do that?" Patsy wondered perhaps if she should have placed the gauze a little more carelessly, wrapped the bandage a tad askew, knowing that Daphne commented on everything. When she asked her prying questions though, and Patsy replied in what was clearly a lie, or said nothing at all, she never pressed – that was why she could tolerate her. Victoria, and many of the other girls, made a great deal out of her aloofness, as if instant trust with sensitive secrets was a deal breaking factor in whether or not Patsy wanted to be their friend. That didn't make sense to her though, and she supposed if other people could just understand that then she might have more friends, more people like Daphne. When she couldn't think of a reply, the other girl looked at her for a long moment, her gaze piercing, as Patsy knelt in front of her, pretending to inspect her work but knowing it was perfect, and then flipped the subject.

"You want to read the note. I was waiting for you to ask, but you don't like to ask for things, do you? Not even from me." Daphne remarked, her observations always making her shrink away from how cutting and accurate they were. "Here – enjoy James Gregson's penmanship and prose." Her eyes scanned over it, and it was simply a time and a place and the promise of a bottle of scotch and smokes. "I've run out of cigarettes, so this is good timing. They were all friends with Charlie, my brother, before he went to university; a few of them have visited us in the holidays and such. It's a shame the nuns won't just let us all be pals."

Patsy wondered if she was as innocent as she seemed in saying that – surely she knew that the other girls wouldn't want to just be friends with the boys, and vice versa. Though she supposed it was unfortunate for Daphne, whose intentions were just good company and an adrenaline rush. She supposed she would only like to be friends if some male company was offered to her as well – she wasn't interested in the boys like the other girls were, and she had stopped pretending to be for a while. In fact, she was starting to think something was wrong with her. Actually, she knew there was something wrong with her. The time in the Christmas holidays she had spend with Clarissa had been so very odd. It had been nice, in a sense, but also incredibly stressful in a way she couldn't quite place. She had felt nervous all the time, pathetic really, and she'd never been one to say things simply to please another person, and especially not to impress them, yet she found herself doing exactly that with the pretty blonde. She felt giddy around her, and she hated to admit that it was the exact kind of giddiness that certain girls in her boarding house got that usually she hated and couldn't comprehend. To say she was terrified about the true nature of what all this meant was an understatement.

"Indeed. It would be nice." She agreed. "To be friends, that is." She added. Strangely, she couldn't help be relieved that Daphne's ongoing liaisons with the boys were still friendly ones, and strangely she wanted to reassure the other girl that if she were to be pursued by them, she would be the same about the whole affair.

 ** _May, 1950._**

The last term of her final year at school had come around, and Patsy was not tinged with the sadness and premature nostalgia of many of the other girls. It wasn't that she was miserable here, but she was happy to be going soon, to move on, and not to mention that providing she got the grades she was expecting to, there was no doubt she'd be accepted onto a nursing course in London. Yet again she had spent most of the Easter break here, albeit a few days at her aunt's house in Herefordshire at the woman's absolute insistence. Her mother's sister, Aunt Audrey, had written to her, imploring her to take a break from school, to come and visit her and her cousins and celebrate her eighteenth birthday with her family. She had relented, as the woman had been so very good to her, the only person in her life who had truly let her be sad when she needed to be. Her father had come for dinner one night, no doubt after a stern conversation with Audrey, and it had been pleasant enough, she supposed.

The others had been back a week or so, and as usual she had to fight the urge to be irritated by the renewed noise, the whispers in the corridor, the drama that came with their return. She wondered if the nurse's home she'd inevitably live in would be any better, if everyone would have matured a little – she hoped so. True to scatterbrained form, Daphne was still in the process of unpacking, but had nearly finished after matron had all but threatened to give her knuckles a seeing to with a ruler despite her being legally an adult. She burst into the room in her usual fashion, breathless, grinning; her dark curls bouncing loosely around her face.

"Organ?" Patsy asked.

"Indeed. Good session, actually. Could you hear?" She asked, grinning, dropping her thick stack of sheet music on her desk, only for her to desperately have to rummage through the now unorganized pile the next time she was playing. Daphne was no sportswoman, but as for music – she was the best in the school.

Usually able to hear choir practice, and Daphne's organ playing, when her window was open, she'd been using her new record player – a gift from her aunt. "Sorry, Daphne. Was enjoying some of the records you gave me."

"Quite alright. What did you think? Was it the Stravinsky or the Prokofiev, or Charlie Parker?" Her eyes lit up with enthusiasm, and even if Patsy hadn't enjoyed what she'd listened to she would have pretended to anyway, lest that look disappear from her face.

"Charlie Parker, the jazz one." She smiled. "And it was very good. I think I'll study to it." Daphne looked thrilled.

"Or we could listen to it together." She suggested, "If you liked it enough to play it again."

Patsy's lip twitched, as she tried not to give away too much, "That would be lovely."

"So," Daphne's adopted a mischievous look, "Since we're leaving soon, but not quite yet into exam fever, I thought I'd have one last soiree before everything gets terribly boring around here, and I was wondering if you would like to join me. The boys so want to meet you, I talk about you all the time."

Patsy looked up, surprised, and gauged the hopeful look on Daphne's face. She was unbelievably flattered and strangely pleased that the other girl talked about her to such an extent that her male friends wanted to meet her. She didn't have much of an interest in their company, but Daphne's was always fun. Not to mention that the naughtiest things she'd done in her time here had only included creeping around the hallways at night – never leaving the school – and the drinking and smoking that a good proportion of the girls got up to anyway. She supposed she ought to come away from here with a good story or two, since she hadn't made the swathes of lifelong friendships and happy memories that her mother had once told her she would when she spoke of her own schooldays. Besides, she only had a few months left – the worst that could happen would be being stripped of her prefect's badge. She stopped weighing up the pros and cons though, because she realised that she couldn't say no to Daphne even if she tried.

"Fine, I'm in."

Daphne leapt onto her bed from her own, jumping up and down, "Yes!" She said gleefully, dropping to her knees in front of her and grabbing both of her hands, "We're going to have _so_ much fun, Mountbatten. Just you wait." Patsy glanced down at her hands where they were connected, and then back up at Daphne, whose smile didn't falter for a moment and was strangely infectious.

"Fine, but if you don't finish unpacking soon then matron will come knocking tonight - tomorrow at the latest - and if we're not here, or I'm halfway out of the window having morning smoke, then I'm done for." Daphne rolled her eyes playfully, climbing off her bed straight away to her disappointment, and making a great show of opening her trunk. She started on pinning things above her bed. A poster advertising a jazz concert, one of a classical one at the Royal Albert Hall, pictures of her family, but mostly of actresses – Judy Garland, Rita Hayworth, Lauren Bacall, Katherine Hepburn – with not a Cary Grant or Walter Huston in sight, a welcome change from Victoria's display. She never did manage to complete the task of fully unpacking her things though, her side of the room looking somehow _even_ messier, before they began preparations for sneaking out.

Daphne was awfully experienced, and Patsy had seen her do this many times. They got changed out of their nightclothes, which they had put on for a show in case anyone came around, despite matron very rarely checking that final years were actually in their bed at lights out. Sarge had a particular fondness for Patsy too, despite her frustrations with Daphne, so they were fairly safe in that department. And then it was time to wait until two am, which was, according to Daphne, the time at which every member of staff and nun would be asleep unless they were terribly unlucky.

And so they went, creeping down the corridor – the easy part – slipping through the door at the end of it. Luckily they weren't at the very top of the building, and only had to descend one set of creaky stairs. Past matron's room ever so carefully, outside which there was the door to the common room. She watched in anticipation as Daphne eased it open, having explained earlier that there was an exact point at which it squeaked terribly, but tonight they were lucky and slipped through it silently. Then came the door from the common room onto the patio, which would lead them outside – heavy and old, she watched in awe as the other girl tackled it in almost complete silence. Anyone else would have been caught red handed by now, but she was in such expert company it all seemed a little too easy, and she understood why Daphne was forever doing this. If she was so good at it, why wouldn't she?

Then the other girl grasped her hand tightly, and they ran across the pitches, breath picking up and laughter overtaking them as they got further and further away from the school, their destination the equipment shed. The boys had further to come, but she promised that they would already be there, unless they had been caught. Daphne explained that if she arrived and they didn't show up, not being able to risk it, or already being caned within an inch of their lives, she would take a walk of the grounds in the darkness, and Patsy almost hoped that the young men they were meeting would be a no show. It became obvious though as they drew closer, walking now, out of breath, that they were there. Quiet chatter and laughter rang out from behind the old shed.

"Good evening James, Frankie, Alastair! Meet Patsy." She grinned, releasing her hand and ushering her towards the trio. They welcomed her warmly, and it became evident rather quickly that they weren't the kind of boys she despised, the kind of boys that expected her to be grateful or reciprocal toward their advances. "Where's that scotch then, and my cigarettes?"

"Alright, alright." James rolled his eyes, holding out the bottle, which appeared to have already been laid into a little bit, and a brown paper bag. "So impatient."

Daphne accepted them; "You've got to keep your promise to my brother. Told him you'd look after me, the lot of you did."

"I don't think he had in mind alcohol and cigarettes, but the chap was the first head boy we've had not to beat us all to a pulp and let the prefects run amok, so I suppose we do owe him rather a debt." She had heard about the boys school – the older boys bullying of the younger ones – and it sounded rather horrific.

"What in the good lord's name is this?" Daphne looked outraged at the contents of the paper bag. "Have you emptied the contents of my cigarettes into a bag? What for?"

Alastair sighed, the bespectacled blonde looking forlorn, "You have to roll it into a cigarette. It's all we could get in town on the weekend. Sorry, old thing."

Daphne began to look more and more confused, dipping her hand into the bag of loose tobacco and plucking some from it, inspecting it in the dark. "And how on earth is that supposed to work?"

"It doesn't…really." Frankie replied. "Or at least none of us have figured out how yet."

"I nearly did it." James held up a twisted looking mass of paper and tobacco. "But it wouldn't light."

"Well, that's just great." Daphne sighed, "Yes, I'm sure these will help massively." She added, as James meekly handed her a packet of rolling papers and a packet of filter tips.

Patsy bit her lip for a moment, before piping up. "Pass it to me."

"It's impossible, but knock yourself out." Frankie shrugged.

Patsy didn't openly object, but simply thumbed a paper from the packet – much thinner and easier to fold than the thick paper they'd had in the camp – and inspected a filter tip, which should help keep the shape. They all went back to chatting, clearly unable to believe that it could be done, and not bothering to watch her struggle. It all came back to her rather quickly though, and she put a sprinkling of tobacco into the crease of the paper, popped the filter in, and began to gently roll and press the brown shag into shape. Then she tucked the corner in, and to her surprise realised that the thin slip of paper even had a sticky strip. She licked it, and smoothed out her creation, then held it out to Daphne.

"Holy smokes." Alastair exclaimed.

"Beginners luck." Frankie insisted.

Daphne gaped, plucking the cigarette from her fingers and inspecting it closely, her mouth wide open. Then she grinned, throwing her arms around Patsy's shoulders and planting a kiss on her cheek. She was glad that the darkness was hiding her blushing, "You marvel! You wonderful thing, Mountbatten. How on earth did you manage that? Can you do it again?"

She didn't answer her first question, but nodded in affirmation to her second. In the camp it hadn't been long until the Japanese army began to make life hard even for their own soldiers, rationing their food and drink and cigarettes. Normal packets had soon been replaced by rolling tobacco, and cigarettes were what the women in the camp had bribed, traded, and begged for in large swathes. In the weeks typhoid had claimed mummy and Nancy, she had no longer found herself being told off for speaking to the women who always seemed to have the most tobacco, and the most luck with getting things from the guards in general, one of whom was Anne. She would sit with her, teaching her to fashion cigarettes out of the crudest materials, never letting her smoke them though, despite her cheekily asking once or twice. It was from Anne she had learned the very worst ways of insulting people, and the very best of human nature.

She happily rolled cigarettes for the rest of them, becoming so proficient and smooth at it that she continued doing so the whole time they spent together, so that the boys would have an ample supply, spurred on by the awe with which Daphne gazed at her, and interrupted by swigs of the scotch she took when the bottle came her way. By the end of the night she felt warm, happy – the boys were nice enough, and Daphne seemed in her element somehow, able to be herself with people other than just Patsy. She could have felt jealous, but instead she enjoyed watching her, gesturing wildly as she always did, running a hand through the hair that fell into her eyes, pushing it from her face, dragging on cigarettes and talking about jazz, art, philosophy so intensely that Patsy often found herself out of her depth – she focused on science these days – but she was satisfied just to listen, and observe Daphne's enthusiasm.

When they journeyed back, lightheaded from the scotch and the ample amount of cigarettes, Daphne had to remind them to be quiet – getting in was almost as hard as getting out. But despite their clumsiness and the stench of smoke on their clothes, they somehow managed it, not able to resist a giggle as they made it safely to the hallway, shutting the door behind them.

Daphne let out a huge breath, and then they launched into laughter again. As they slipped back into bedclothes, lest matron or another of the girls walk in and wonder why they had _both_ slept in normal clothes, Daphne asked, "So where did you learn to do that? The rolling. You have to teach me."

Patsy paused, her teeth pressing into her bottom lip once again. The scotch had loosened her tongue and the evening with Daphne had her feeling more trusting and fonder of her than ever. "In Singapore." She started slowly, "During the war." She added.

Curiosity passed Daphne's features, and she didn't say another word for a few moments, "But the Japs had Singapore. If you were in Singapore then…then it was occupied." She said carefully.

"Yes, it was." Patsy affirmed, watching the other girl closely. She could see that she was thinking, that she was putting the pieces together – perhaps she already had. "The British, all the foreigners, we were in camps." Daphne was quiet, her eyes darting down. She didn't say _oh sweetheart, how ghastly_ or _darling, I'm so sorry_ , she just looked at her, with no pity in her eyes but also not an ounce of awkwardness. "Just one of the many things we had to learn to do, I suppose." She tried to lighten the mood, but Daphne was still quiet.

"It explains a lot." Daphne said, and Patsy's gaze snapped up. Usually it was awkward condolences, but never before had anyone said that to her – not that she had told many. "I don't mean it like that, I don't mean it shows in every part of you. Just things you've said, a handful of times. You can be quite cryptic." She supposed that was true – she slipped up sometimes, not always fully able to keep every secret every minute of the day under total lock and key, she wasn't strong enough for that, no one was. After a moment she added, "You'll talk in your sleep tonight, won't you?"

Patsy nodded, "Probably."

"I worry about you when you do. Its rather…disconcerting." Was it that bad? She supposed she wouldn't know if it was. "If you wake up, you can wake me up too. If you like." She appreciated the offer, but she probably never would. The other girl crossed the room, and sat on the bed where Patsy was reclining.

"Or you could stay here." She suggested, regretting it immediately. Why would she say something so unbelievably foolish?

Daphne nodded, completely unphased, rather worryingly so. And then she felt guilty, because she knew what part of her had risen up and urged her to implore the other girl to stay right where she was in this moment and it was a part of herself she despised and didn't want to exist. Daphne never would have agreed if she knew, but instead she thought that she ought to do what Patsy asked because she was upset. Was she using her grief to live out the dark part of her she tried so hard to bury, that she couldn't even admit the true nature of? It was so wrong, and the guilt of it began to surpass her grief and it was showing.

"Mountbatten?...Patsy? Why don't you get the light?" Daphne started, smiling warmly when she looked up at her, throwing back the covers and squeezing into the bed with her. She made some space for her, but they were still very close indeed. "It's alright, old thing."

 _No, it wasn't alright._ Patsy lay, seething in self-hatred, in regret and wrongdoing. There'd be no worry about her talking in her sleep tonight – she doubted she'd catch a wink. But then, in the darkness, Daphne pulled her close, and her head rested comfortably on the other girl's chest. She could hear Daphne's breathing, her heartbeat, and she found herself listening carefully, not even needing her nursing textbook to know that it definitely too fast. At first she thought that Daphne had interpreted her request as completely innocent – it wasn't, and she hated that, hated that she wanted something that she really shouldn't – but now she wasn't so sure, as she could almost feel the other girl roll her eyes, smirking in the darkness as Patsy shuffled, trying to get comfortable without giving herself away too much. By morning, their silent and careful adjustments had led to Patsy draped over the smaller girl, curled into her side. Well rested, and guilt free now.

* * *

A/N: You know what's coming next - adulthood, and Delia. Stay tuned.


	3. Nurse

Three Roman Fates

 ** _March, 1957._**

Nursing had been everything she expected it to be, and she loved it. Of course Patsy had derived satisfaction from other pursuits in her life before – she was academically proficient, and combined that with hard work, so her grades had always been good, she was tall and strong and had been a force to reckon with on the hockey pitch at school, not to mention a fearsome fencer, she read when she could find the time, and had a soft spot for her literary pursuits. But nursing had given her something more than all of those things combined. It wasn't perfect, nothing ever was, but that wasn't something that bothered Patsy too much. There were patronizing doctors, there were sleazy ones too, and inappropriate not to mention difficult patients, but nothing had ever made her feel as whole as this. It had picked up a tendril of her past and brought it full circle, it had allowed her to reconcile some of her pain. In helping people she found peace, and she found that the broken parts of herself had some use, rather than eating away at her from the inside out.

She had long since shed the label of offish and aloof – well mostly. It was a combined effort of those around her being older, more focused and directed, and her trying harder. Being happier, and doing rewarding work, it suited her. She was ruthlessly efficient, often short with those who weren't, and obsessively dedicated. That came with its own reputation she supposed, and not always the one she wished to put out, but she would never compromise her work or her professionalism for approval – so that was that. Yet there were still other parts of her it didn't help to heal, that not even this profession could offer any balm for. When she could bear to think about it, to consider what she was, she desperately tried to rationalize it. Once upon a time, it had been a silly phase – _she had never properly spoken to any boys and once she left school she would like them well enough_. And then it had been the result of boarding school, of course, followed by a similar set up in the nurse's home – _she'd just been around women so much; she was bound to feel close to them, and had never truly bonded with any men._ She knew in her heart though, that it was neither of those things, which then led her to have to consider another reason, to have to think about the two parts of herself she hated the most in tandem – _it was the camps, wasn't it? The way they were beaten and tortured, the way those devils watched the women wither, starve and die. She would never able to separate what those men did to her, to her family, from any other man she met in the wake of it._

Patsy agonised over it, despite the futility of doing so. She didn't pick over the reasons in her mind because she longed to love a man though, longed to do the right thing and get married. In fact she could think of nothing worse. She did so only because it was a complication – one that reared its head to taunt her when she least expected it, like other facets of her that she so wished she could wash away. She could have been a happy spinster even if she wasn't this way, but because she was, there would always be a part of her longing for something more, longing for the love of someone she couldn't have. Mostly though, as with her childhood, she managed to keep it behind a closed door. But there was a problem though – someone was knocking at it, nay, beating at it with all her might, and Patsy didn't think that she even knew she was doing it. The worst thing was that Patsy let her, not able to bear distancing herself, still actively seeking her out when she should be nipping the whole situation in the bud. Guilt consumed her when they were apart – if only she knew what Patsy was feeling she would be entirely disgusted – but when they were together it was all forgotten.

"Come, Pats!" Her door flew open, and there was only one person who wouldn't knock – besides, that song-like accent was unmistakable. "I want you to see my room." She was only just pulling on her civilian dress, her shift over. "Oh, sorry!" Delia said, her smile not fading in the slightest.

The corner of her lip twitched, the other woman's enthusiasm entirely infectious. Delia had just finished her training, passing with flying colours, and she was so proud, and so looking forward to working with her properly, rather than the poor girl being a dogsbody like the rest of the trainees. When she had been on Patsy's ward though, she had gently guided her through what she was supposed to be doing with more patience than she'd ever afforded any of the others. _If you let me get away with murders then how am I ever going to learn?_ She would quip all those months ago, saying that if the ward sister saw Patsy tucking in the corners of her just so slightly off bed-making, they'd both be in for it. Now she'd moved onto the same floor as the qualified nurses, just a few doors down, and she didn't know how she would cope with the proximity.

"I'll get that." Delia said, but Patsy had already zipped up her dress most of the way. She wasn't ready for the other woman to question her on the interlocking and criss-crossing of white streaks on her lower back and hip, the result of an entanglement with some barbed wire when she had still had the energy to play. She finished the job, her fingers brushing Patsy's shoulder blades and her knuckles pressing into the back of her neck as she fasted the hook there. She hoped that she didn't notice the hair at the nape of it standing on end. "Are my hands cold? A nurse with cold hands is no good." Patsy cursed internally.

"A little." That was a reasonably plausible explanation.

"Well you can warm them up then." Delia grasped both of Patsy's hands in her own, wishing that her heart didn't lurch so as she did, and tugged her into the hallway gleefully. The other woman's boundless energy and endless happiness was irresistible to Patsy, but when she had met her all those months ago she couldn't have predicted that it would infect her in this way. The other woman's curiousity for London, the joy she took in exploring it, had meant they had spent a lot of time doing so. And when that had been exhausted or, Patsy dared to think, she began to take more pleasure in simply sitting on one of their beds, drinking soda, sometimes gin and tonic, and chatting into the small hours, they had spent a lot of time doing that too. The others who had originally accompanied them on the buses to the landmarks, or piled cross-legged on a bed with them, gradually began to dissipate, until it was just they two, together in most of their free time. It was barely a few strides with her long legs to Delia's door, and when she pushed it open she glanced around the room. She would have loved to help her unpack, but she had been working, and she supposed it was nice that she got to see the finished product. It was much the same as her old room, except her nursing certificate was hung on the wall, and the daffodils she had gifted her before her shift were arranged in a vase on her cabinet. She smiled at them, and then at Delia.

"It looks great. Like home." She remarked, as she fondly inspected the family photo she'd seen many times before that had its place next to the flowers, never growing tired of seeing Delia's mischievous eight-year-old smile.

"I'm so glad we're close to one another. I don't know that many people here – the other girls who I qualified with are in another wing, and the ones who haven't finished yet are all the way downstairs." It wasn't far at all, in the grand scheme of things, but she appreciated Delia's words. They would see each other near everyday now, their paths crossing all the time, and because of that Patsy wouldn't have to find herself nervous that going out of her way to find Delia, to spend time with her, would be seen as too much.

She smiled, "I'm glad too."

 ** _February, 1958._**

The old clock that hung on her wall sounded ominously, each tick shuddering as the ancient thing that had been in her room since it became hers forced its worn gears to grate on, to persevere. A strip of light sliced through the gap in her curtains, assaulting her eyes until she decided to relent and roll over until dusk fell and she didn't have to be reminded of the day she was wasting – and for what? Patsy was not one to let things show, and perhaps that was why she was here, hidden away in her room while she recovered from the trauma of the bus of emotions that had barreled into her full steam. Never giving anything away, it made things pile up inside of her, like a child too young to understand the laws of gravity stacking building block upon block, higher and higher, and bawling when it tumbled. Migraine, she said it was, as it wasn't completely a lie. It was enough to keep most people from knocking, though Kate had come along at lunchtime, tapping on the door. She pretended to be asleep until her fellow nurse had walked away.

There was one person she should have known she couldn't hide from, and one person she found herself not wanting to. Delia had seen her wearied face yesterday evening, and she wondered if the other woman had really thought her unwell, or could see right through her as usual. She had probably bought it, or perhaps she was angry with her, as she'd rushed past the other woman dismissively en route to her room, wishing she hadn't caught to hurt on her face. Delia didn't really get angry with her though – it was Patsy whose temper flared. The small Welshwoman grew frustrated sometimes, and she was always right to be, but she had a gentle way of showing it. She was eloquent with her feelings, measured and clear in her explanations of them, and Patsy wasn't. Usually she didn't explain, and when she did she was positively bursting at the seams so it all gushed out messily like a dam bursting, destroying everything, sweeping everything away but Delia. She was steadfast, constant, and Patsy didn't know what she had ever done to deserve her. _Don't say that, Pats, please don't. You deserve every happiness, and if I can give you just a little bit, I will._ The other woman gave her so much more than just a boost in her mood though – happiness was an inadequate way of putting what she did for her. Delia's love washed through her into every available corner, filling her to the brim with an indescribable joy. She was her balm, her medicine, chipping away slowly at the stalagmites that grew in her mind.

"Pats." The voice was quiet, the tap on the door gentle. "Patsy?"

She was silent for just a moment, and perhaps it was because she knew that the other woman would open the door anyway if she waited any longer, or perhaps it was because whatever her reservations, and despite her desire to keep something for herself, lest Delia waste her energy pitying her, or worse, deeming her too broken, she eventually replied. "Deels."

The door edged open, and she slipped inside. It was light enough, even with the curtains drawn, for her to see that she was carrying a tray, which she placed on her dresser, locking the door behind her. "Kate said you were asleep earlier when she brought you lunch, so I've got you something to eat." She was quiet for a moment, and Patsy waited, sensing she had something else to say. "I found out from Janice that you weren't well this morning." She heard the slight hurt in her tone.

She came over, perching on the bed, sitting in the crook created by her stomach and thighs as she lay on her side. "Migraine, Kate said. Have you been vomiting? Have you got a temperature?" Delia stroked some hair out of her eyes for her, her palm lingering on her forehead, not that she would find anything amiss. "I'll stay with you – I just finished. You were missed on the ward today, I heard Rose saying." She could feel the other woman's gaze on her. "Am I hurting your head?" She asked, her tone growing concerned. Patsy curled further into herself, inadvertently trapping Delia where she was sitting. The other woman's fingers found themselves tangled in her hair, stroking gently. "Oh, cariad."

Deels must have thought she was in terrible pain, and she felt guilty. She felt guilty because it was nothing to do with her head and she was providing all of her care and concern for nothing – nothing she shouldn't be able to handle. But she couldn't, and she hated it when her strength failed her. She had bounds of it, she knew that much, she'd had to – all her life. But it was tested severely from time to time. She sniffed, feeling embarrassed, overwhelmed, guilty and harrowed all at once. Tentatively she reached for Delia's hand, twining their fingers together, closing her eyes as the other woman's thumb drew circles on the back of her hand. "Deels." She swallowed, "Deels, I'm not sick. I'm so sorry." She clenched her teeth, holding behind them the emotion that was bursting to come out, her eyes giving her away as tears escaped them.

"Sweetheart?" Delia knelt on the floor by her pillow then, her knuckles brushing her cheeks, wiping the tears away. "Tell me, Pats."

So she did. She told her how the pediatric ward had been short staffed, about her relief to get away from male surgical. It had been wearing her down, destroying her love of nursing. She told her about the little boy who had been rushed in by social services, the London being the nearest hospital to the hell he had been plucked from unforgivably late, unforgivably overlooked. Eight years old, named George, near starving, sick, more desperate for love than he was for food, for relief. The sight of him had knocked her for six, let alone the story he came with – first she had been angry, angry that this had been allowed to happen, in England, in this day and age, and then she had found her stomach turning, her heart thumping out of time, a dread overwhelming her. He had been on the ward, awaiting transfer to Great Ormond Street for a few days, in pain and scared and with no one in the world. She should have sat with him, cared for him, but she hadn't been able to look at him, and she hadn't been able to stop thinking about him. There were things she didn't tell her though. She didn't tell her about how much she dreaded every shift on male surgical these days to the point where it was becoming unbearable, how this episode had terrified her that her professionalism was slipping, how much the stress of being caught with Delia was bearing over her. Perhaps she should have, but somehow George seemed plenty enough for one day.

"Oh, darling," She sighed, climbing into bed with her, pulling her head onto her chest. "Of course you couldn't stand it. It's not your fault."

"I should have been able to." She replied softly, pressing her face into the crook of the other woman's neck.

Delia tutted gently, "You can't hold yourself to impossible standards, Pats. You're so strong, sweetheart, to simply be okay every minute of the day. If you can't manage it flawlessly, that's alright." Once upon a time she would have just let Delia hold her, not quite knowing what to do with herself, not having been held as she cried since she was a child. But these days her arms found themselves tight around the other woman without prompting, without Delia having to place them around her and show her what it was to be comforted. "And next time, find me, cariad – _tell_ me."

Patsy nodded into her neck, sighing as the other woman stroked her hair, her fingertips rubbing her scalp. She had told Delia so much, so much more than she had ever told anyone else. As their relationship had deepened over the months, as by some miracle they had both been pursuing a friendship that they secretly yearned would take a deeper form, as they had kissed and confessed and hidden their relationship, more had been revealed than just feelings for each other. She feared that Delia wouldn't want her, for many reasons really, but mostly because of this and all that it brought. It brought out everything bad in her, though she supposed some good, sometimes. It made her curt, impatient, frustrated, angry and sad. Not very often, but when it did, it struck hard. And now she was close to someone, they were close to it too; close to the damage she was capable of inflicting. The other woman had never been anything but perfect – if Patsy reacted badly, it was never because Delia had actually said the wrong thing – and she hated to underestimate her, she felt guilty for doing so, but it was just plain self-defense for her to assume that the other woman's sympathy and understanding would falter, that it wasn't limitless.

Delia sunk down into the bed, turning onto her side and facing her. She took her face between her palms and pressed a kiss to her forehead, saying nothing as a hand trailed the shape of her side, into the valley of her waist and settling on her hip in the gap between her pajama trousers and top, brushing bare skin. She caught her bottom lip between her own in a kiss this time, her fingers tracing the barbed wire scars on her side, down into the small of her back. The first of many cuts, grazes and gashes that were easy enough to obtain in the camp, and should have been easy enough to tend to. But in the conditions, the heat and the damp and the dirt, they never healed neatly – grazed knees and the like, staples of childhood, grew putrid in no time at all. She was sure Delia had many of her own – not the white sprawling ulcer marks she had on her own legs, but the knocks and bruises of play – in fact she knew that she did, the difference being that hers had been lovingly tended, washed, dressed, disinfected. Deels' message was clear enough though, she loved her despite all of it.

 ** _April, 1959._**

There were so many reasons why she simply had to go, but one reason why she desperately wanted to stay. Male surgical had taken her love of nursing between two hands and ground it to a dust. Biting her tongue was becoming increasingly difficult when the men's words cut into her, and even the occasional hand grazed her. There were only so many, _you naughty man!'_ s she had left in her before she snapped, she was sure of it. Most of the doctors were obnoxious too, though some were kind, but her unflappability had led her to gain a reputation for being able to stand them, so she often found herself placed with likes of the dreaded Dr. Hansen, or worse, Dr. Hornsey. She wanted to help people, she wanted to make a difference to their lives, and she didn't feel as if she was doing that here. Not to mention there had been far too many close shaves with Delia, and the whispers had started, the observations that they spent so much time together, the insinuations that they were too close. It was better to leave now, she knew that much, before their luck run out, before their whole world came crashing down.

Delia had been moping, but she knew that the other woman understood that this was necessary. They would be together – they had to be, there was nothing else in the world she wanted more, and even dared to think that she deserved after everything. Of the two of them, she knew she had to be the one to make the hard decisions, and not the ones that indulged their every want and desire, for those were far outstripping the reality of their situation, and reality had to be observed from time to time. Before Delia, life was….just, well, life. It was harsh, it was cruel, and it was unfair – especially to her, and she tried not to dwell on it. But once she'd met her, oh how she dwelled. Even before they had made their feelings clear to each other, Patsy had been embittered about who she was, _what_ she was, cursing everyday for it. And after that, the unjustness of their situation angered her deeply. The pain of being in love and having to hide it every minute of the day was only balanced out by the love itself.

"I'm not leaving you." Patsy stated, as she cleared her desk of new textbooks worn out, new paperwork filled. "You know that, don't you?"

Deels was quiet for a moment, stretched out on her bed, her eyes cast down. "I know," She said eventually, "But it feels like you'll be a million miles away. I know it's only Poplar, but when will I see you?"

"Soon." Patsy promised. "Whenever I can. I mean it, Deels. I couldn't be without you."

"I can't help feeling this is my fault." She said finally, Patsy knowing that she'd been thinking it for a long time.

"Deels," Patsy sighed. "Sweetheart, you know that its not. You know that it's everything else. If it weren't for you I would have been out of this place a long time ago." That was the truth; it was Delia that kept her here, Delia that had brightened up her worst workdays, Delia that had held her at night so tightly when they'd had the chance that she never wanted to be let go. And then there was the sneaking around, neither of their respective faults, of course – the hidden moments that were almost found, the accidentally falling asleep in each other's beds, the lack of the privacy they needed to live out their love to its full potential. Being apart would be hard, but it would keep them safe in the long run, keep them from loosing their jobs and their lives until they were able to make a real one together.

"Pats?" She turned to face the other woman, her grip on the box she was clutching almost faltering when she saw her. "Pats, come here." The look on Delia's face was an unmistakable one, a look she'd come to know well. It was desperation, yearning so pent up, so out of control, and it thrilled Patsy but not without a side ordering of fear. The door was unlocked, it was not a good time of the day and there was no reason why anyone wouldn't assume they could walk right in. They'd had to stop locking their doors when they were together, whenever it wasn't absolutely necessary, because of the implications of it - even being careful was becoming risky now. "Please, just for a little while."

A quick and concerned glance to the door, which meant very little and did nothing to comfort her – just a gesture really – and she was all Delia's, to do with her what she would. Delia had every right to complain about her hypocrisy, relenting one moment, melting into her touch, and pushing her away the next, reiterating the risk, but she didn't. She sunk into the lumpy, scratchy mattress next to her love, relishing in her childish smile, the grin of someone who had just got their own way, and pulled her into her arms. "You, Nurse Busby, will be the death of me."

"And I won't be far behind you." She quipped, "Stop worrying, Pats. You're leaving now, what's the worst that could happen?" She said, as Patsy's head whipped around upon hearing footsteps past her door, her heart in her throat.

"I might be leaving, but you still have to work here. Besides, no doubt they'd tell my new employer. Neither of us would nurse again, you know that, Delia."

She stroked her hair gently, "Mhmm." She hummed in understanding, her actions contradicting her.

Patsy sometimes envied the ease with which Delia handled this side of herself. It was a miracle she had even realized it at all, rather than ending up in a loveless marriage with a smattering of children, confused as to why she could never love her husband. Patsy had reasons she could employ, ways of explaining why she was this way – Delia didn't, she had grown up in a perfectly normal rural British household, but the lack of rationale didn't seem to bother her. Patsy had long since shed the self-hatred, the guilt, about how wrong this was. She knew that it wasn't, she knew that fact deeply within side of herself. This was beautiful, and it would be a shame they couldn't share it if she was one for public declarations of her feelings. But she never could shake the overbearing dread of the reactions of others, and could never put aside her understanding of how deeply disgusted the world would be by them. Delia seemed to manage that just fine – it must bother her, on some level, but never enough to let it get her down.

After a few moments, Delia piped up, "I can't believe you're going to live in a nunnery."

Patsy snorted, covering her mouth as she laughed, "Delia, don't. It doesn't even bear thinking about."

"You, in a nunnery?" She repeated, sounding every word out for maximum hilarity. "Will you think of me?" She added, with a coy smile.

"All the time." Patsy replied with a smirk. "Besides, they're not Catholic nuns, so I shan't be reliving too much trauma. And they're hardly going to rap my knuckles with a ruler if I misbehave."

"Good, you had better." She smiled, "And if they give you any grief, they'll have me to deal with."

* * *

A/N: Delia, as promised. I'm rather enjoying writing this, and I definitely have more in me. Next is 'midwifery', and perhaps an exploration into Patsy's relationship with Trixie and the like, as well as her relationship with Delia before it came to light on the show (we can safely assume it was carrying on, I believe). Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this - I wanted to get it out before tomorrow, a last little fix for my lovely and kind readers before Sunday.


	4. Midwife: I

A/N: I'm having rather a lot of fun with this fic, so I'm going to be splitting Patsy's time on the show into multiple chapters, as so much happens - yay. This runs from her introduction to the show through to part-way through series four. I had to interpret the timeline myself, as the show tends to give us the year and then only the weather to go on, but if you know I've got my months mixed up, please tell me. Do enjoy!

* * *

Three Monastic Vows

 **June, 1959.**

Living at Nonnatus House had been a far smoother affair than she had ever expected it to be. Her reservations about the nuns had quickly dissipated – in fact, not one of them resembled Mother Gertrude or _worse_ , Sister Margaret Mary, even in the slightest. Sister Evangelina was rather straight-laced and stern, but she could see that she did not harbour the tendency to whack children over the knuckles with rulers, in fact Patsy had seen her with children, and she was rather sweet. Neither did she seem so inclined to send any of the midwives to bed without their supper for minor misdemeanors; rather she simply let her – usually reasonably placed – displeasure be loudly and widely known. She had done very little to earn her keeper's ire so far, bar apparently lacking a sensitive touch with the mothers, and being delegated to district rounds. But she supposed there were always going to be bumps in the road, learning curves, and she was rather pleased that this one didn't involve the discussion of her own curves as it had on the male surgical ward, by patients and doctors alike. The fact of the matter was that she had learned, that she was still learning, and that her love of this profession was returning full force.

She had been mistaken in thinking that Nonnatus would be stricter than the nurse's home, as the personal touch that came from there being so few of them meant that late nights that would be way past the curfew at her old residence could be bargained for, that loud music wasn't met with a warning note in one's pigeon hole but a gentle suggestion that next time it be played a little quieter, and nightcaps and tomfoolery were viewed fondly as the joyous pursuits of young women simply having fun – or at least, that was what Trixie had told her. She had yet to get a proper night off, but the her roommate informed her that it shouldn't be hard to arrange, should she want to stay out later. The woman she shared her lodgings with was a delight – bundles of fun, energy and personality. She was sure they would be very good friends in no time, already sharing advocaats and scotch after their workday, listening to records, Trixie talking about men, and Patsy trying to fill the space in between. She didn't mind so much, she was used to the chatter of other women – this was like boarding school again, but much more fun, since she felt happy and as if she possessed a purpose.

It was hard though, to talk to Deels. Most of the time they had spent together before had only been possible because of the close quarters they were in – nattering away in the hallway, or when luck would have it, being on the same ward, and then spending the evenings together when they'd both worked during the day. They had rarely had the chance to go out, but now that was all they could do. Using the phone for personal use was frowned upon, and she had to limit herself, not that she could talk any more honestly than Delia could. When they got the chance though, they filled each other in on their day, what they'd been doing, in short conversations that would garner no questions – particularly on Patsy's end. She wouldn't want to be asked if she had a gentleman, and when replying that she did not, asked why she still pined for her 'best friend' like a teenage girl. So they wrote to one another, saying all the things that they couldn't in the hallway of the nurse's home, or in clear earshot of all of Nonnatus house.

Spending time with new women, living with a group of them far smaller than she ever had, so she was by proximity forced to become close to them, made her realise how the relationship between her and Delia must have been starting to look to others. It wasn't even her usual paranoia, she thought, to observe the marked differences between their behaviour with each other, and her behaviour with say Cynthia, or Trixie. Whenever she was beside herself missing Deels, she reminded herself of that, reminded herself that it was only a matter of time before a stumbled upon kiss, being discovered in each other's beds, wasn't even necessary for the people around them to piece together what was going on. She couldn't help looking at her the way she did, and Deels could help it even less. She placed her pen down when Trixie walked in, folding the half finished letter, already filled to the brim with all the things she would say softly into the receiver if only she could, and placed it in the drawer of her bedside table.

"Have you got any plans for your day off then?" Trixie asked, sliding gracefully toward the record player, a Sobranie clamped between her lips – the only brand she had ever see her smoke, placing the needle on her copy of the new Platters album. "It's a shame I'll be on the night shift – we could have gone out on the town." She sighed.

"As far as I know I'll be leading an excursion for the cubs." Patsy said. It wasn't that she was disappointed about it, she adored those little scamps, but it was a shame that she couldn't spend it with Delia – not that she'd broken the news to her yet. It was a fortnight away, so she had time, and she knew that the other woman wouldn't be all too happy about it.

The blonde sighed as she tended to her hair for the night in the mirror, "Honestly, Patsy. If you could change the trip to another day I'm sure Sister Julienne wouldn't object to taking you off the roster. It's kind enough of you to volunteer with the little devils as it is, and its community service. All you did last month was spend all day milling around here only to go to the dinghy café around the corner. You deserve to have a bit of fun." She took a drag of her cigarette, turning to give her a stern look.

If only the other woman knew why she'd 'wasted' her day off in a dirty old café with a dodgy jukebox and tepid tea. She had been desperate by the time she'd managed to see Delia, barely able to contain herself as she sat across from her, the excitement so much she couldn't even eat the iced bun before her, she could only stare, snapped out of her daze every time Deels finished a sentence and looked at her expectantly, only to begin laughing at her lovesickness. She smiled to herself, realizing that Trixie was giving her a similar expectant look, waiting for her reply. She rolled her eyes playfully, "Trixie, the date's been arranged now – the boys have already started handing in their slips. I don't mind, really, besides, it might not happen. Fred can't come that day, and if I don't have support, it can't go ahead. I couldn't imagine ferrying them to the British Museum on my own, let alone controlling them inside of it." She shuddered at the thought of the unruly boys swinging off ancient artifacts and 'embellishing' masterpieces. She paused for a moment, "You don't want to come, do you? Like you said, it wouldn't compromise your actual day off if you were allowed, and I could so do with the help." She gazed at her pleadingly, but the look that crossed the other woman's face gave her enough of an answer.

"Absolutely not. And even if I wanted to I don't think I could be spared. Why don't you ask one of your nurse friends? The parents would have no objection to that." She suggested.

"Trixie, you wonderful thing. That's a marvelous idea!" Patsy exclaimed, the other woman looking quite surprised at the level of her enthusiasm her innocent suggestion was being met with.

"Well, don't say I'm not full of them." She smirked, filling two glasses with her chosen tipple of the evening. "Cheers to that then, since you clearly already have someone in mind." She handed her a tumbler, and Patsy chinked it against hers heartily, trying to dampen her smile. What a way to spend not only this day off, but also all of her time volunteering with the cubs, with Delia by her side. She just knew the other woman would say yes – she had such a way with children, in fact she was leaps and bounds ahead of her when it came to understanding the little things. Must be because of her abundance of cousins, Patsy thought. Later that night, when Trixie looked deeply absorbed in a magazine enough not to ask who she was writing pages upon pages of squashed letters to, she whipped out her partway finished correspondence to Delia to tell her of her roommate's suggestion. It wasn't quite spending the evening in each other's arms, but she supposed it would hark back to the times they had spent exploring London together – including the British Museum – albeit with their romantic nostalgia for the place a little diminished by the small matter of acting in loco parentis to twenty little boys, but what fun it would be anyway.

 ** _November, 1959._**

"If you have to go, Pats, I can finish up." Delia said as they stacked chairs, speaking over the sound of their legs grating across the floor. She wasn't quite ready to leave the other woman though, despite her prior engagement. It was the last time, unless there was a miraculous stroke of luck with their respective schedules, that she would see the other woman before she left to spend Christmas with her family in Wales. Delia perhaps knew that she needed a little encouraging to get on her way as well, dreading the evening she had ahead of her. She lifted yet another pile of chairs, and carried them into the storage room.

"Its fine, Deels. In a stitch, I can get a cab." It would be easily paid for. "And remind me to make the cubs sit cross legged on the floor next time we do first aid." Patsy called over her shoulder, wiping her brow.

She almost jumped as she sensed Delia behind her, setting down another stack, wondering how on earth the other woman was so stealthy – perhaps it was that which led to her more nonchalant attitude toward risking displays of affection in fragile situations. Deels chuckled at her shock, "Your cheeks are all red. And that's the last of them," She referred to the much larger stack than her own, and Patsy wondered if it was the cigarettes that were preventing her from keeping up with Delia, or if she was just surprisingly strong for her size. "Let me roll up the bandages, I'll take all the instruments back to Nonnatus. You have to get ready; you can't go to a fancy hotel all hot and bothered. I'm sure I'll catch you before you've left."

"But everyone will be th-" She caught sight of the other woman's understanding turning into something else, as Delia glanced behind her at the door of the dark storage room. The community centre was empty, and it was almost certain no one was going to walk in at this hour. "Deels…"

She only had it in her to warn her gently. What if one of the boys had forgotten something and charged in looking for it? What if Fred had picked this very hour to do an odd job? What if- _oh_. The other woman's fingertips grazed the sides of her neck, tracing upwards until she cupped her face, thumbing each cheekbone in a familiar motion. She didn't want to resist her, and ultimately she couldn't. Out of reach – a sometimes-useful fact, for the sake of preventing Delia from being able to launch an attack on her at an inappropriate moment – she relented this time, angling her face down and meeting the other woman's lips. Kissing her was blissful, and it made a telltale blush sprawl across her cheeks and chest even thinking about it, let alone reveling in it for real, but she had to pull away. It was for the best, and she hated that setting limits on what they could and couldn't do was for their own good, that it was the only way they could survive this world.

"Right, that's your first Christmas present." Delia grinned, "Couldn't not give it to you before I left, could I? Your other one will be in the post soon." She said, while Patsy tried to kick-start her brain back into action. "Oh, I don't think I've helped you in the hot and bothered department." She laughed, and Patsy felt her cheeks burn harder, chewing her lip between her teeth. Hopefully the nippy weather on her journey back to Nonnatus would explain away the tinge to her cheeks that would no doubt linger for some time.

"No," Patsy glanced down, her hand nervously fiddling with the sleeve of her cardigan. "You haven't." Deels could only chuckle at her bashfulness, reaching out to give her hand a quick squeeze before they emerged from the storage room, packing her off to Nonnatus to get changed, insisting she'd be fine to finish tidying up. Patsy yielded, not wanting to leave her just yet, but knowing that if she was going to get to the hotel on time she really had to dash. So she set off on her bike, weaving through the Poplar streets until she got home, shoving the trusty old thing into the rack and dashing up the stairs in a rush.

She got ready, entertaining Trixie's chatter about how lucky she was to be dining so luxuriously tonight, and genuinely appreciating her input on how best to pin her hat to her head and on what to wear. Patsy owned a handful of nice dresses, but she didn't live frivolously, preferring slacks and a shirt on her casual days. She could do, if she wanted to, if she asked her father for an allowance – but she didn't, and she wouldn't, so that was that. She didn't think she'd gotten ready for something like this so quickly in her life, not having wanted to miss a moment in relative privacy with Delia. But if she'd had any doubt that she didn't look near presentable enough, it went out the window when she saw Delia at the bottom of the stairs, box of stethoscopes and sphygmomanometers clutched in her gloved hands, gazing up at her completely dumfounded, her lips parted in such awe that Patsy felt heat prickling in her cheeks again.

"Doesn't she look marvelous, Delia?" Trixie exclaimed, clambering down the stairs behind her, clapping her hands together.

Deels adjusted her grip on the cardboard box, looking as if she was about to drop it, and then appeared to snap back into reality. "Quite." She said measured as she could, trying almost too hard to take control of her features, to mask the longing that was so desperately trying to escape.

"You should go and get those sterilized and put away before Sister Evangelina has both of your heads on a plate and Patsy misses her dinner at Claridge's." Trixie said, far more excited over this whole business than she could ever be herself. Delia agreed, and Patsy bit her lip as she turned, heading for the autoclave.

"Have a lovely Christmas, Deels." She said, faltering on the stairs. Could she hug her? Would that be okay?

The other woman smiled warmly, her gaze still taking her in, "You too, Pats. I'll see you soon, alright." Their eyes conveyed all they could with Trixie still hovering in the stairs, and nuns wandering around the place, but it was enough, after their kiss in the community centre, after an evening of messing around, exchanging technical banter about each other's medical technique to a crowd of baffled nine to eleven year old boys. It was the best farewell she could have hoped for, given the distance between them now, and she was so thankful that Trixie had inadvertently suggested she bring in Delia's help with the cubs.

Still reeling from her delightful evening, she had just enough time to catch the bus into Mayfair, not wanting her father to foot the bill for the cab she would have had to get if she'd taken just a minute longer, not that it would be a drop in the ocean for him, but still, the idea made her uncomfortable. Hopefully the bus driver was feeling particularly lively today, she considered after glancing at her watch – it was too late to change her mind about public transport though, she'd already hopped on the back. It was alright, her father was probably enjoying an extra scotch or two at the club knowing him. It was always like this when he visited London – there was a reunion of some sort, an old friend was sick, he needed to visit his preferred tailor – and they would meet, in Claridge's, have dinner, then he would gladly slink back to his gentlemen's club, and she back to work. She was fairly sure that it was only by her aunt's insistence that he let her know he was in town at all, and she wouldn't be in the slightest bit put out if he never thought to tell her. She did however respond well enough to the obligation to meet with him.

Climbing off the bus and trotting down the street in her heels at a reasonable pace towards the hotel, she looked much more in place here than she had when she had stepped on her transport for the evening, but still felt somehow as if she didn't fit. She would have, in another life perhaps – popping down to London with mummy and Nancy for shopping trips, social events, while daddy disappeared into a cloud of cigar smoke in Clubland. Her father had done his hardest to make this her world – he had gotten her a governess, sent her to a fine boarding school, suspected that while he funded her 'silly nursing training' that she would really be spending her evenings effortlessly charming all of Knightsbridge as her mother had, instead of curled up in bed next to a certain Welshwoman. She knew though that it had been far too late for her to have any hope of finding pleasure in all of that kind of thing, it all seemed beyond excessive. She could play the part for an evening though, remarkably well, according to Delia, who'd had an absolute blast poking fun at her the last time her father had visited when they had been in the nurse's home, and a fair bit of fun more openly eyeing what she had worn that time.

She slowed when she arrived at the hotel, knowing well enough that it wouldn't do to be seen practically sprinting through it her mother's favourite haunt, past the Christmas tree and towards the restaurant. When she spotted her father, just as her coat was being taken for her, she remarked that he hadn't changed much in the ten months it had been since she had last seen him. His hair was salt-and-peppered still, his shoulders broad and healthy, the result of years of school and university rugby. He stood when he saw her, adjusting his bow tie – the colours of his alma mater, so he must have been meeting friends at the Oxford and Cambridge Club, she thought – and smoothing his tuxedo. He smiled politely, the dimples she'd inherited from him appearing on his well-aged face. She had always taken after her father – tall, strong, blue-eyed and stoic. Not like her waifish, delicate, glamorous mother, with her pixie features and platinum blonde hair and open and endless zest for life. Her own flaming hair was down to a mysterious great-grandfather she had never met.

She head towards their table and greeting him with a kiss on the cheek. "Hello, father."

"Good evening, Patience." He pulled her chair out for her, and she sat down, acknowledging the waiter as he placed two menus in front of them.

"I'm not late, am I?" She asked.

He shook his head, "Not at all." She resisted the urge to chew on her bottom lip as she usually did in these situations, and glanced at the menu to fill the space between them. "Patience," She glanced up, "I have something to tell you. You haven't asked why I'm in London." Should she have? It had never been for more than a handful of similar reasons.

"Oh?"

"I've been hiring a lawyer." He started.

Patsy tried to feign intrigue, "But you have a lawyer – Mr. Jones."

Her father paused for a moment, setting his menu down to discuss wine with the waiter. When he returned to her, he had a spark of something in his eyes that almost looked a little like excitement, "This is rather beyond Mr. Jones' reach and expertise. Patience, you know that there are many Jewish groups that have been set up to recover things stolen from them during the war. Well, they spotted something, while not of their concern, that they thought suspicious – three paintings on the market whose last legitimate owner was a long time dead. A British woman who died in Singapore during the war's paintings being peddled by an unrelated Swiss black-market dealer didn't seem to add up to them, so they reported it. Thank goodness they were in your mother's name and not mine, otherwise it wouldn't have seemed odd at all, really."

He waited for her reaction, breaking eye contact to sample the wine the waiter had poured, giving him a nod of approval. She let her own glass be filled before answering, "Are we-are you getting them back?" She asked slowly, a surge of emotion overwhelming her. There was very little in this world she had to remember her mother by – everything that meant anything to them was in Singapore, and it had all been taken. Of course, when they had returned to Berkshire, there was a house of furniture, a few pieces of jewelry, a handful of sentimental items, but she had never attached her mother to those things in the same way she had everything that existed in their life before.

"Yes, they've been seized, they're being shipped to England immediately." He said with a smile, taking a sip of wine. She hadn't seen her father so energized since before the war. The man she knew then was an English enough father, but never truly distant – he valued his work immensely, and spent most of his time devoted to it, but above all he loved his wife and children. He had played with them, sleeves rolled up, hands in the earth as they gave the gardener an heart-attack pulling up flowers for mummy, urged her to join in their game of simplified cricket as she reclined in a sun lounger, satisfied to sunbathe and flash her kilowatt smile at their fun, scooping up Patsy and Nancy and carrying them off to bed while she managed to secretly swindle story after story out of him simply by pouting. She supposed this meant more to him than maybe it even meant to her – he hadn't seen her mother since they all waved him off on the boat to England, expecting to return soon, and then expecting that once things got messy in the Far East that they would all arrive in Dover to wait out the war, and then that after three long years he would collect them all from Singapore, worse for wear but all together again. Patsy wished she could tell him what mummy had been like in the years that he had lost with her, and Nancy too for that matter. She wished she could tell him how in the first week her mother had bargained with locals through gaps the fence for medicine with her prized possessions, not for her own children, but for the sickly baby of another frantic mother, and had taken the punishment for it with more strength than she thought it possible for someone to have. She wanted to tell him that mummy had employed her charm, her beauty that was such that if she hadn't been born to the family she had, she may have been permitted to pursue a career in film or modeling, to keep everyone cheerful, organizing a variety show for the first Christmas in the camp. How her disposition hadn't faded as her body did, not for one moment, as she continued to distribute her share of food between her and Nancy even though it was killing her.

"The lawyer is to prosecute the devil that stole them." His tone turned a little bitter then.

"Father, he's dead. He was hung." She said softly – it had turned out that the Japanese general who had enjoyed their residence for the period of the occupation had been guilty of war crimes like so many others.

"Good thing too, but his family weren't, and it was no doubt they who took them." Patsy wanted to say something, to say that there was no point, but even if the waiter hadn't interrupted to take their order she would have held her tongue anyway, knowing better than to contradict him. But what good would it do to punish the children, or wife, of the dreadful man that had lived in their home? What crime had they really committed other than being related to a brainwashed beast, and having taken valuable things in the desperation and heat of war, being unsure of their own fates? They were wrong to do it, of course, but some of their things were going to be returned now, and wasn't that all that mattered? It was more than they could have ever hoped for, knowing that the jewelry, the watches, were practically impossible to trace. She often found herself wondering, as she walked past jewelry shops, if any of the jewels or pearls laden in the pieces in the window had been plucked from something her mother had once owned, the gold or the silver that housed them long since molten down.

"You'll let me know, when they arrive, won't you?" She asked.

He nodded, "Of course. They should be home in time for Christmas – if you would come to your aunt's, I'm sure we could drive to the house and you could see them." He suggested.

"I can't. Babies don't stop being born just because everyone would like a little time off work."

"Indeed." He remarked. She knew that her aunt wanted her to spend Christmas with her and her cousins and father, in fact her father seemed to be asking her in his own way to come along, but it had been so long it seemed like too foreign a concept. Besides, she was rather excited to spend it surrounded by her friends at Nonnatus and doing the very thing she loved. "You're enjoying it then, your career change? Tell me what its like."

Patsy was surprised at his interest, something he had never expressed before. She indulged him, telling him about her new life in Poplar, about how much she was enjoying it, cracking a joke or two about living with nuns again. She told him about her roommate Trixie, about a few of the cases she had dealt with, a few of the interesting characters. She left out a few details – she left out the technicalities of midwifery, something she was sure her father didn't particularly want to hear over dinner at Claridge's, or at all for that matter. She left out a mention of Delia, though she had been tempted before, to talk of the woman who meant so much of her, and even at times of frustration with her father, to reveal all to spite him, knowing he would never repeat it out of shame, and that it would perhaps chase him away for good. But it was right to use Delia in that way, she knew that much, and somehow it seemed that this time her father was trying – in a small sort of way.

 ** _April, 1960._**

Their long stroll along Regent's Canal had been interrupted by the onset of some April drizzle that looked set to quickly worsen, so Delia grabbed her arm, directing them on a path back into the park where they might be able to find some shelter. "Come on, Pats!" She urged, as they set off on a quick trot, her hand on her hat. The gentle rain didn't seem to be putting off the children that were playing in the only expanse of green in the East End that they could enjoy, and clearly didn't mean to Delia that they should leave Victoria Park just yet. She supposed to the Welshwoman it was the closest thing to the Nurse's Home that resembled her childhood surroundings. Patsy didn't have quite as fond memories of boarding school and the expansive countryside that surrounded it, but it was nice to get away from the oppressive grey of Poplar, away from the buildings caked in black and the overcrowding to this place, with its boating lakes and bandstands.

They slowed a little, accepting their fate as miniscule raindrops gently peppered their faces, and shelter in sight, Delia reluctantly releasing her arm, sensing Patsy's unease and knowing that she could never bring herself to pull away from her steadfast grip. "How are the pack?" She asked with a fond grin.

"Very good – asking after you actually." She replied. "Not on their best behaviour the last time we met. I was without Fred or you though."

"But you're hardly a push over, even when you're standing alone." She smirked.

"I think it might have had something to do with the sweets they begged me to give out sooner rather than later." She reasoned.

"And the rose queen? You said in your letter that Trixie's boyfriend got put in charge of it and she had all hands on deck, including yours." Deels lamented, that having been Patsy's excuse for missing her date with the other woman. It was a contributing factor of course – her friend had made various comments about how she'd rather spend time with Delia, verging on dangerous when it came Patsy's heightened paranoia about such things, and when she was a young trainee nurse she vowed that she would never abandon a friend in need at the beck and call of a young man, as other girls had so often done to her, should she not be the way she was. But there was also her concern for Marie Amos that had taken up a lot of her time.

Patsy bit her bottom lip, "It went swimmingly – in the end."

"Oh?" Delia clasped her hand gently and pulled her down to sit on a bench under the sturdy protection of the tree they had found.

She paused for a moment, "Last year's rose queen didn't have an easy run of it."

"Oh yes, you said she was pregnant." Delia nodded, rummaging through her bag to pull out the peppermint creams she'd bought on their way to the park, offering her one. Patsy dipped her hand into the bag, fiddling with the wrapper.

"Marie Amos, yes. Her husband, he was caught in a rather compromising position in the run up to proceedings. He was caught…soliciting another man, in a gentlemen's bathroom. He went to trial for it." She started.

"That's terrible, Pats." Delia said immediately, taking her hand. She never tempered her reaction, never turned her words over in her head three or four times like Patsy did before speaking. Perhaps it was what her governess had drilled into her about being a proper lady, or perhaps it was because she dreaded being caught out so badly that every word that left her mouth was said through a lens of fear. She always tried to filter out anything that would give her away, when it came to this, and any other feeling she had, and more often than not it had her bursting at the seams. She didn't know how she would stand it for the rest of her life, and everything that happened with Mr. Amos had her thinking that something had to give, that things had to change – eventually. "You didn't tell me. What happened? He didn't go to prison did he?" She asked with dread in her voice.

Patsy shook her head, "No, Doctor Turner provided a character witness for him in court. It worked, well…it kept him out of prison. He has to have…treatment." She said, the final word putting a bad taste in her mouth.

"Treatment? Not the aversion therapy…it's _barbaric_ , Pats." She wouldn't usually reveal such a sense of foreboding toward something she knew was affecting Patsy – she knew her too well – so this must be bad. She remembered when Delia had worked on the mental health ward, but she didn't recall her mentioning this. She must have kept it from her.

"Medication instead." Patsy assured her, not wanting to think of the poor soul being tortured over pictures of handsome young men in a room all alone.

"It won't really change who he is." Delia said. "At least, I don't think it can."

"No, me either." Patsy sighed. "Do you suppose there's anything like that…for women?"

The other woman breathed in sharply, " _Patsy_ , you don't want to-"

"No, Delia." She shook her head, horrified that the thought would have even crossed the other woman's mind. "I love you." Before Delia she had always cursed herself, and whomever else that came to mind, for her being this way. She could see herself never having married, even if she was right in the head, being like Nurse Crane, devoting herself to her work, being satisfied with that and a life lead on her own terms. The older woman had a car, a purpose, and no one asking her endless questions about her romantic life. But this blip in her brain had complicated what would have otherwise been rather happy spinsterhood – she couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to have a partnership, a love, with a woman, and it had pained her to pine after something so impossible. She had never, however, despised herself enough to wish it away through barbaric means. And she didn't believe it could be scrubbed out of her, it was too deep set by whatever had put it there, by the camp – she often thought.

"You scared me." Delia said softly.

"I was just wondering, you know, what they would do if they found a woman doing the same thing." She replied.

"Women don't go into public toilets looking for that."

"How do you know? Maybe they do." Patsy said.

Delia smirked, "Have you got something to tell me, Patience Mount?"

She nudged the other woman with her shoulder, "Delia!" She protested at the insinuation.

"I think what you're really wondering is what would happen if we were found out." Delia said plainly, and Patsy fiddled with her hands in her lap, staring down at them. "Patsy," She started gently, "We won't be. Not until we're ready to be, not until the world is a better place. Besides, I don't even know what the medical community has conjured up for women who are like us, probably nothing, they probably don't even believe it to be real. I should think they'd just prescribe marriage to a handsome man and a baby not long thereafter."

"They give them estrogen…the men." Patsy sighed.

"Well, they could hardly start prescribing women testosterone. That would make everything a whole lot worse, even the ones who aren't that way probably wouldn't be able to keep their hands off each other." Delia laughed, and Patsy blushed at the thought.

"Quite."

"Why else are you upset?" Deels probed gently. Pasty could have rolled her eyes at her astuteness, and she chewed on her lip. "Stop doing that." Delia chastised.

"Sorry."

"Your lips are perfect as they are, no need to go taking chunks out of them." The other women stared at her longingly, and she felt heat creeping into her cheeks at the compliment.

"It's just how everyone reacted."

"The community?" Delia asked.

Patsy cocked her head to one side, "Yes, but the community…well, I mean, I think that people will always have something to say, in a better world or our world now, against any kind of difference or change. That's something that's always been, that's something I can accept." She began. "But at Nonnatus, there were all sorts of…views. I didn't expect that, I expected a blanket disapproval of him, of what he had done. But more than anything it just…well, I care about them, all of them, they like me…and-"

"I suppose you didn't really think about what they'd think or do or say until it came up." Delia helped her out as she struggled to articulate herself. "And it rarely does – my parents have never talked about it, I don't even know if they know it exists. Well, I suppose my father was in the Great War, and apparently the army is rife with men like that, but no one ever really talks about it all the same."

Nonnatus were like family, the closest she'd ever had to it in so very long, and it hurt to discover that the love of those you cared for, and who cared for you, was conditional. Of course love was always conditional, to a degree. If you were a bad person, you could count on it enduring less, if you were cruel and cutting and disrespectful. But when it came to matters of the heart, matters of adoring someone in a way that hurt no one else, in a way that only made the two of you swell with joy, it was painful to think that if it came to light she would loose the happy place she had found. In the wake of the discussions over dinner about Mr. Amos she had _felt_ herself withdrawing, clawing back the small parts of herself she had laid bare, slipping back into the shawl of professionalism she wrapped herself in, covering herself back up. "It just made me think…if they knew, would they hate me?"

"I don't think they would, Pats. This is a complicated thing for people to understand, but hate is simple, and the way you talk about Trixie, Barbara, Nurse Crane, the nuns, none of them see the world as a simple thing – how could you, doing the work that you do?" Delia always said the right thing, always tapped into the source of her fear, however deep it was, and did all she could to alleviate it, and even when she couldn't, her simply being there made everything better.

"Sister Winifred was…so opposed. But the others, they seemed to be kinder. Still, it doesn't matter if they were kind or not, I suppose. They still follow the word of God, so they still think that it's wrong." She said bitterly.

"What about the girls?" Delia pressed, suspecting they had been more positive.

"Barbara's as green as the grass." Patsy said fondly, "Nurse Crane…I suppose she's rather one for the philosophy of live and let live. And Trixie, well Trixie was only concerned that he had cheated, in fact, she didn't mind at all what he is." She informed her, remembering Trixie's story of dating a young queer doctor to help him hide his true self, something that had made her think very highly of the other woman. She had been careful though, to express _too_ much concern for the situation in front of her friend, not that she ever would have assumed, but as ever Patsy was overly cautious with giving too much away.

Delia smiled, "See, Pats. Not everyone hates it…hates us."

"I know." She relented, allowing the other woman's reason to wash over her, not daring to think about if Trixie knew that someone far closer to her than the husband of one of their patients was that way inclined as well. "I suppose it's pointless to talk about it anyway. All hell would break loose if it came out, and that's just that."

"It's not pointless to talk about something that's been bothering you, silly. You so rarely do." Delia rubbed her knee.

"Indeed, and I chose our first day out in weeks to." She rolled her eyes at herself. Not getting to see Delia in small doses meant that things became pent up inside of her, the other woman unable to interpret a weary day from her face here and something bothering her from the way she sighed there. She never realized quite how much the other woman got her through the days until she'd left for Nonnatus.

"It's good for you to talk about things. You and your stiff upper lip – I tell you, in Wales we let everyone know when we're not happy about things." She joked.

"Ah yes, the Welsh. Expressive, passionate like the French." Patsy smirked.

"Without the sensual accent." Delia replied.

"See now, I beg to differ on that one." She retorted, her cheeks flushing as she pinched another peppermint cream and enjoyed Delia's chiming laughter.


	5. Midwife: II

A/N: The soaring highs and cavernous lows of the second installment of Patsy's years as a midwife. After this, I may have to wait for a few more episodes to come out, as I've rather caught up. I hope you enjoy, and do let me know what you think if you would like to.

* * *

Three Trimesters

 ** _November, 1960._**

Patsy knew that Delia was no longer upset with her, if her anger had ever truly been directed towards her in the first place. Yet she couldn't help but concern herself with the other woman's thoughts and feelings, as she made them so blatantly obvious in deep contrast to her own reserved manner. She tried to keep reminding herself that Delia's frustrations had been placed with their situation, and not Patsy – Delia had even reiterated that in the wake of their little tiff. But it was impossible not to feel like the other woman's increasing lack of ability to cope with their circumstances was something to do with her. It wasn't that Patsy found it any easier, but Delia had made an astute point in saying that she was better at pretending to be all right about it. Of course that was absolutely not a comment on how she felt about her, on the contrary really, as someone had to keep them safe otherwise they wouldn't be allowed to just _be_ at all, but she could see how it might seem that way to Delia.

She still remembered how her breath had hitched in her throat, how she thought everything that meant anything to her in the world was slipping away from her in a back street of the East End, how she thought she couldn't possibly survive this – one heartache too many, one final nail in the coffin of her capacity endure anything that came her way. Of course, that wasn't true, not entirely. A part of her would have survived it, the part of her that she put out for the world to see, the part that smiled and persevered and got on with things with all the efficiency of the well trained nurse that she was. But the part of her that was beaten and bruised, her shriveling capability to love, to trust that good things would happen to her, to even dare to hold hope, that had been reanimated by Delia, tended to and handled with all the care in the world, would be gone. It was testament to the dilapidation of her optimism that she had even believed, for one short and agonising moment, that Delia just couldn't do it anymore, that she would marry, have children, probably move to the country, and live her life as if they had never been, as if they _were_ ghosts. For a few seconds she had berated herself for ever having assumed that, as difficult, near impossible, as things were, Delia was a constant, something that wouldn't be brutally pulled from beneath her feet. And then she had felt guilty for even doubting her.

Of course she knew that Delia loved her, she had known it for a very long time, even daring to interpret it from the look in the other woman's eyes, from the way she stroked her hand, before the words had even quietly escaped from her lips, and she had returned the sentiment with a sigh of relief that this was more than just a wild episode of the Welshwoman's life, more than just a misplaced flirtation she didn't understand and didn't intend to keep up for much longer. But their time together was so limited now, and Delia's patience clearly was as well, so for the other woman to say that she wanted to marry her – well, that meant the world. It was so affirming, and filled her with such indescribable feelings of joy. But it was also damning, because it was impossible. They were destined to love each other in a way that could not be realised, not fully. Still, Delia's confession meant one thing – it meant Patsy was determined to find a way. They would never kiss outside in the rain like in the movies, she would never be taken to Wales in a flurry of post-engagement excitement and be introduced to her intrigued village as her exotic London beau, they would never glide onto the floor after a first dance at a wedding only to cheekily be asked if they were next. But one day, hopefully soon, they wouldn't live as they had been. Perhaps someday they could get a flat, live subtly, with no one willing to see what was right at the end of their nose. Maybe in twenty years, ten even, people would realise but not say a word, at least not to them, having lost their appetite for the upset and upheaval of their unfair persecution. And maybe even one day it would be okay, like so many other things once despised and denounced. And until then, if that day were to come, they would simply have to love each other in each and every way that was possible for them here and now.

It was on the high street while picking up some new nylons that Patsy's gaze was drawn into the windows of the many shops and their colourful displays. A dress shop, a tailor's, a furniture outlet, and more recently a spice store and a Caribbean restaurant she thought might look exciting to pop into one day, never one to shy from new and interesting tastes. And when she passed a jeweler's she didn't know what it was that made her stop, but stop she did, glancing at the fine necklaces, bracelets, and finally the rings. Her teeth sunk into her bottom lip as she was caught in her thoughts – thoughts of how wonderful it would be to slip one of those on Delia's finger. She was, in some way, tempted to go inside, to enquire about prices and styles. She supposed she could say that her gentleman had suggested she pick one out for herself, as that was becoming a theme of modern relationships, but she was so very bad at pretending to have any interest in men that she feared she wouldn't pull it off. Not to mention she likely couldn't afford something that Delia would deserve. There was, of course, always the option of taking her father up on that allowance – and it would be an opulent one – and putting that aside for a while, but he would wonder why her change of heart, and then it wouldn't really be her buying something so special for Delia. She walked away from the shop, resolving to put a little more away each week from her wage packet.

"Any exciting purchases?" Trixie enquired, as she set her shopping bag down on her bed.

"No new clothes for you to pour over, I'm afraid. Just two pairs of stockings." Patsy replied, producing them and putting them away in a drawer.

"I thought you'd come back laden with checked shirts like last time." The other woman quipped, and Patsy smirked a little, knowing that the other woman bemoaned her tendency to wear only those with a pair of slacks in her down time, bar a particular occasion. She folded the paper bag and slipped it under her bed with the few others that resided there – one could always find a use for such things – and the corner of it nudged against a box. It was then that she had a thought. It was hardly an engagement ring but it was a fine piece of jewelry, she supposed.

She entertained Trixie's chatter, and gladly accepted a glass of Tizer while she turned the idea over in her mind. She was desperate to be polite, but when the other woman left to take a bath after attending a birth that had gone on since the early hours and only just been wrapped up now, she was relieved, diving under her bed and producing the battered box, prizing off the lid. She removed items, one by one, taking particular care with her worn diary, the pages of which were growing brittle, and pausing over the coloured photos her father had sent her of her mother's paintings, pride of place in his home, until she found the small paper packet she was after, thumbing the hard circle inside. Her father, distant, awkward, and without the words to express the grief that they shared, so they were never said, hadn't had it in him to go over the things that had been left of her mother at their Berkshire estate, never producing them, never giving them to her, so she had been left to find things – a stray opera glove here, a monogrammed handkerchief there – as she had wandered lonely through rooms that held no sense of home to her when the garden grew boring, or too cold.

One year, one holiday she had been convinced by her aunt to visit her because the older woman had thought it terribly inappropriate for her to celebrate her eighteenth birthday alone at school, her aunt had pulled her aside. _Patience, I have one more thing for you before you go to bed. Now your mother and I, when we were girls, we shared everything, our things would always get muddled up and mama used to say that we really ought to just share a wardrobe. See, the other day I found this._ It was then that her aunt had produced a ring, unlike anything she'd seen her mother wear when she was a child, much more modest and understated. _Before your father, your mother was the object of many an affection,_ she had said with the traces of a smirk gracing her lips, _and when we went to London one time when we were teenagers a rather roguish young art student took a shining. They wrote for a while, and she saw him once or twice again, but mama and papa would never have allowed it to continue – he was well to do enough, I suppose. After all, he gifted her this, but it certainly wasn't an appropriate match. You mustn't tell your father though, it was rather a forbidden love and I'm not sure he knows about it, but take it anyway._

She opened the packet, the ring slipping out into her hand as she turned it over between her fingers – a silver band with a small diamond. She wished she had her mother's engagement ring, but something that looked like that wasn't destined to stay with her for very long, and it was on the arduous walk to the camp that it had been put to her – the ring was coming off, or her hand was, whichever she preferred, and she had reluctantly given it up. Patsy had once struggled to find meaning in the house, in the things of her mother's that had belonged to her before Patsy and Nancy had been born years later in the Far East, but somehow this little ring seemed perfect. It was symbolic of a relationship that would have never been permitted, never considered appropriate, but in passing it onto Delia she supposed she could say that they weren't doomed, as her teenage mother and artist beau had been, and assign a new meaning to it. She smiled to herself, slipping it back into the small, square envelope and realizing that she really ought to make an effort for her date with Delia this afternoon if she were going to give her this, so she gave herself over to the mercy of the mirror.

"Are you seeing Delia again?" Trixie asked, slipping into the room in her silk robe and eyeing her position in front of their shared mirror. Patsy nodded in affirmation, never giving too much away, even if her enthusiasm for the time spent with the other woman on her days off was hard to quell. "I say, you are good at keeping up with friends, aren't you? It's so easy to fall out of contact, even with phones and cars and the like." Trixie knew she didn't have any other friends though, not that she 'kept up with' in the same way that she did with Delia. She'd seen her father last year, took lunch with her aunt whenever she was in London, responded to the invite of a cousin here or there to a party or to dinner, and she was worried her affection for spending time with Delia was becoming more transparent than she thought it. "I can't begrudge her stealing you away from our nightly natter though, you're always in such a better mood for seeing her. What time will you be back, anyway?"

Patsy bit her lip, thinking carefully about how to reply, taking time over the application of her lipstick. "I think by the time my day off comes around I rather need the break." She settled on, though it wasn't strictly true. Her job rarely wore her down. "I'm not sure." She answered.

"Well, I was up all day and night, so I'll probably be asleep when you come in." Trixie said.

"I'll try to be quiet when I do." Patsy promised, wondering if she should risk changing her outfit or if her sudden desire to dress up would prompt any questions. She relented in the end, picking something appropriate from a hanger and slipping it on, already planning what she would say if Trixie brought it up – that it was a warmer item of clothing, and it was going to get chilly tonight, but the question never came. "I'll let you get some shut eye now. Cheerio!" She said cheerfully, slipping the little envelope into her handbag, gathering up the rest of her things and smiling at her on her way out, practically skipping down the stairs.

She spotted her on the corner, waiting by a lamppost, and glanced both ways quickly before trotting across the street and capturing her in a measured hug. Delia's smile was broad, and she grasped Patsy's hand briefly before releasing it – there was so much conveyed in the gentle squeeze of her fingers, but mostly love. "Silver Buckle, then?" She asked, nodding to their favourite haunt, which was just across the street.

"I thought we could go for a walk – Victoria Park?" Patsy suggested. There was no way she could present Delia with a ring across the table in a tiny, overcrowded café. It wasn't exactly the venue for grand romantic gestures, and she didn't trust Delia to contain her reaction.

"Don't be silly, we'll freeze." Delia chuckled.

"I-I brought you a scarf." Patsy unwrapped it from her neck, having laden herself with two for the journey, suspecting that Delia would say that.

Delia frowned for a moment, trying to work out her game, "If you want to talk to me alone that much, we can just go to the nurse's home." The other woman smirked. "But I will take the scarf, thank you." Her features softened at Patsy's gesture, and she tied it around her neck, smiling at her fondly.

The walk to the nurse's home wasn't too long, no longer than it would have taken them to get to Victoria Park in the first place, so she supposed it made little difference. They probably would have head here for the evening anyway, to share a spot of gin and listen to a record or two in Delia's room if their chatter in the café didn't run away with them for too many hours. When they crossed the threshold into Delia's room, the other woman locked the door shut behind her – something that always made Patsy's breath hitch in her throat – and she turned, her hands on her hips. "Right, what is it then? It's like you've got ants in your pants."

Patsy sat herself down on the other woman's bed, all of a sudden realising then she had no idea what to say. One usually prepared some sort of soliloquy for this kind of occasion, at least had thought about what to say a little bit, and she cursed herself for that not even having crossed her mind. Delia laughed at the dumbfounded expression on her face, and joined her on the bed, her shoulder brushing up against Patsy's. "I-well."

"Well?" Delia grinned. "Come on, Pats. Spit it out."

"Okay." Patsy nodded. "I've been thinking a lot about what you said, the other night."

The other woman's smile faded, "Pats, I've told you – I am sorry. I was just…I was bitter that day. Not at you, but at the world. I want so much to just-"

"No, no, I'm not upset. I'm not telling you off." Patsy assured her. "I said that we wouldn't live as we were, and I meant it. Things are going to get better, in the small ways that we can make them better, bit by bit, and I wanted to show you that." She took a deep breath, rummaging through her handbag and closing her hand around the thing that she sought. "Deels, I love you, and I know that we can't do things properly, that we can't get married like you want, and trust me, I want that too. We can't get married because that's something that someone else has to let us do, has to witness, but this…this can be between us." Patsy said softly, looking up at Delia's attentive gaze, slipping the packet into her hand.

The other woman stared at her for a few moments, and Patsy knew that she could feel what was inside, and saying nothing she let the ring drop into her outstretched palm, her eyes fixated on it for a few long moments. "I know it's not much, it's not even an actual engagement ring, but I want you to have it – if you want it, that is. I know you can't wear it, it might not even fit, but-" Her rambling was all to quickly cut off, one of Delia's palms taking her face, and the other resting in a fist on her cheek, still clutching the ring. She kissed her hard, their lips melting together, and in the longest time all thoughts of matron walking in, one of Delia's colleagues, of the fact the blinds weren't drawn, went completely out of head, and all she could think of was how much she adored the woman before her.

Patsy's heartbeat was awry when Delia pulled away, hammering wildly in her chest, "Darling… _of course_ I want it." She breathed, her misty gaze divided between the jewelry in her hand and the woman who had given it to her. "You-you didn't have to, Patsy. It must have cost an arm and a leg."

"It didn't, Deels. I already had it." She explained.

She paused for a moment, "It wasn't your mother's, was it? Oh, Pats you don't have to-"

"Delia, I want you to have it. Please." Patsy insisted, reaching out and closing Delia's hand around the ring. "I really do." She stroked the other woman's cheek with her palm, thumbing a tear from the corner of her eye for her. "Don't cry on me now, sweetheart." She smiled fondly.

"Come here." Delia wrapped her arms around Patsy, burying her face in her neck and pressing a kiss there that made her hair stand on end. "I know!" She said suddenly, standing up and opening a drawer, pulling out a box. From it she produced a necklace, and gently slipped the pendant from it, setting it down and replacing it with the ring. "Now I _can_ wear it." She grinned, holding her solution out to Patsy, who stood up also, doing the clasp up behind her neck. She admired it in the mirror, and Patsy admired it hanging from Delia's neck with a gentle smile. Things were going to get better, she thought, as they found secret ways to navigate the limitations of their world, to show each other that despite everything, and everyone else, they loved each other.

 ** _December, 1960._**

Patsy's prediction had been somewhat right – that if Delia were to leave her she would survive. Barely. But that she would. And furthermore, she had been right about what would happen to her inside and out. She soldiered on, as she always did, painting on a brave a face as she could manage, silent tears seeping into her pillow when she staved off the waves of grief all day only for them to catch up with her at night, and then waking in the morning to continue with her work. It wasn't the way she had pictured them being apart though. In her darkest hours she had considered that it would be in the devastation of being found out, of being forced away from each other, or that Delia would no longer be able to take the pain of existing in the way that they did, despite their love, and would call an end to everything. Though of course both fears had waned so much recently, with their increasing devotion to each other, with the privacy of the flat – they had been on the cusp of having everything in place, everything as absolutely perfect as it could be in their circumstances, and Patsy had grown too comfortable. Never, not once, had she imagined that Delia would be taken from her in this way, that Delia as she knew her would be gone.

She thought she ought to be used to having everything she held dear taken from her by now, and she supposed in a way she was. Carrying on was essential, and carry on she did, but inside she felt wrecked, like a shell. The pain that burned inside her everyday was almost unbearable though, like a torch for Delia that wouldn't go out, and she wondered if it ever would. The answer to that she knew – it wouldn't, it would stay with her like every other great loss in her life had. The correspondence that Mrs. Busby had assured her of hadn't come to fruition, and it left her only able to wonder just how bad Delia still was. There was always a chance with these things that her memory would come back, that the seizures would stop, but without any update on her health she could only think the worst – surely Delia's mother would have let her know if she was better, surely she wouldn't want her sitting here in misery. But then she supposed the older woman had no idea how deep her misery ran, how dark and bottomless it was, thinking her no more than a concerned dear friend.

Perhaps Delia would remember, though even then her health may never be the same. Perhaps she would remember and be disgusted with her past self and condemn their relationship, or see no point in returning to London, to Patsy, to resume their secret, illicit and endlessly difficult relationship. Perhaps she would move on, find a nice Welsh boy, do the easy thing, or live out her days with her parents. The silence from Delia and Mrs. Busby's end led to an untold amount of 'perhaps', and she couldn't bear it. She smoothed out her skirt, stepping off the bus at Piccadilly, hating that every moment she had alone, every moment she wasn't busy, Delia was all that she could think of. Of course, it was like that before, but all she could think of then was the last date they had, the last walk in Victoria Park, of how much she loved her, of how she couldn't wait to see her again. She supposed afternoon tea with her aunt was one way to take her mind off things.

She didn't share her family's preference for such luxurious settings, it all seemed a little excessive to her after everything she had seen in her life, in her youth and in her work, but she didn't begrudge them their tastes, their world. So she readied herself as she stepped into Fortnum and Mason's, readied herself to adopt the composure and decorum she knew was expected of her here. Spotting her aunt sipping a cup of tea at a table, she joined her, setting her bag down and shrugging off her layers. "Hello, darling. Oh, come now." Her aunt stood up, holding her arms out, garnering a small smile from Patsy, who accepted the hug gratefully. The older woman pressed a warm kiss to her cheek and sat down. "I was expecting you in your jolly uniform – I've yet to see you in it, though you did send that lovely picture last Christmas."

"I'm afraid it wasn't really going to do the trick for the occasion." Patsy reasoned. "How is your shopping going?"

"Rather efficiently, I daresay. Though not one of my children offered me bed and board, can you believe it? I suppose Kate is in rather a tight squeeze sharing with that friend of hers." Patsy wasn't sure she would call a four-bedroom townhouse a tight squeeze, but she supposed by her aunt's standards it was. "And as for James, well he has no excuse. I think its because he has a lady friend; London has turned him into something of a cad from what my sources have detected. You haven't heard any chitter chatter, have you?" She wondered when the other woman would quite get it into her head that she wasn't a social butterfly on the London scene, and had no more idea of what her cousin got up to in his spare time than her aunt did.

"Not a thing, Aunt Audrey." Patsy assured her, for all the good it would do.

"I was silly for assuming they would extend an invitation – I thought I may have to come and stay in your nunnery, but luckily I got the Waldorf at short notice." She informed her with a smile, pouring her a cup of tea from the pot on the table. "Patience, take some tea. I'm going to be blunt with you now." Patsy glanced up, "You look god-awful, darling. Absolutely miserable."

Patsy tried to refrain from giving herself away, from chewing on her lip, fiddling with her hands, staring at her lap, and doing all the things she usually did when her façade was slipping. She looked her dead in the eye, feigned mock-offense, and quipped, "You should have seen me before I got changed out of my uniform."

Aunt Audrey rolled her eyes, "Now don't you dare be coy with me, young lady. You look positively wretched. I can see it, in your eyes – don't think I can't. You look like you did when…well, you're putting your brave face on, and it doesn't suit you."

Patsy swallowed, "There's nothing wrong, Aunt Audrey, really. What have you bought for-"

"You're going to make me play guessing games, aren't you?" Her aunt raised an eyebrow, "Very well, Patience, guess I will, just tell me when I've got the ticket. You're not coming home for Christmas, so I've only got a good few hours to get it out of you, because I won't let you wallow in it over what is supposed to be such a jolly time of year." The older woman tapped her fingers on the table, thinking for a few moments as Patsy was filled with dread. "Right, let me see…Is it your work? I know it's rather draining stuff, and the squalor and deprivation you must be faced with every single day, its bound to get you down." Her aunt paused, measuring her reaction. "No? You are made of stronger stuff than that, I suppose. Then I can only think its some contemptible young man that's toyed with your heart, is that it?"

"No, Aunt Audrey. It's not my job, or a man. It's none of those things. I'm _fine_." She sighed, exasperated with the woman before her, the woman who had tried, and succeeded just a little, in helping her to heal after the war, the only person who came even a tiny bit close to Delia to reading her like a book.

Aunt Audrey sighed in defeat, looking rather unimpressed by her, "Patience, whatever it is – have a scone, darling, they're lovely – listen, whatever it is, whatever's making you look like a sad, stray little puppy, or _whomever_ , for that matter, you really ought to just talk about it." Her aunt was like her mother in a lot of ways, outgoing, forthcoming, and not really all that English in her outpourings of emotion. Perhaps if it were either of the things that her aunt had suggested she might have been able to bring herself to discuss it with her – she trusted her enough for that. It was no question of trust though here – there wasn't enough in the world for her to tell her aunt the truth – it was that there was simply no-one, absolutely no-one, that could know the real meaning behind her sorrow.

"A friend of mine was in a terrible accident." Patsy relented, revealing just a little through clenched teeth. "She lost her memory, I haven't heard from her since she went home, she lives so far away, and I'm so terribly worried." She said with such a tone of finality she made it clear that was all she was going to say about it.

"Oh, Patience. Darling, that's ghastly." Her aunt reached across the table to grab her hand. "Were you close?"

"She was my very best friend, Aunt Audrey." She said, feeling the tears prick in her eyes.

Her aunt smiled sympathetically, her thumb rubbing circles as she kept her hand in a tight grip. "I can't tell you she'll recover, or that you'll feel better either, I can only pray for her. I know that means very little to you, Patience, and I know you're probably cursing the world right now with everything you have, thinking why her, why my friend, why me, _again_." Her voice grew soft then, "When, if, she gets better and comes back to you and you went on as if she wasn't going to, as if she didn't exist anymore, as if she wasn't your very dear friend, then you'll feel so terribly guilty for it. You have to hope, my darling." Patsy glanced down, knowing that her aunt was right. It wasn't as if she wasn't trying to cling onto every shred of optimism she had, but she knew all too well it was futile, and she was finding her already meagre resources utterly depleted. "There's very little in this world that can't benefit from a little hope, and I know you've seen that which can't, but not everything is that same way."

"You're right." Patsy breathed, "Thank you, Audrey." Was all that she could say.

 ** _May, 1961._**

In some way, Patsy wished that she could tell her aunt she had been right. She could be awfully stubborn sometimes, but on eventual acceptance that another had been right, particularly when it was someone she respected, she was gracious in having been mistaken. Aunt Audrey had told her to hope, told her that she would feel guilty if she didn't, so she had tried. She had hoped and she had continued to love Delia, with every shred of each sentiment that she had, the latter in rather larger abundance than the former, and Delia had come back to her. It wasn't just that Delia had popped back to explain herself, to explain why there had been no letters, to assure her that she wanted her and that she still cared for her, she had returned completely, fighting tooth and nail with her mother in the process. If only Sister Julienne knew quite what she had done for Patsy – she supposed if she did then she wouldn't have been as forthcoming in extending such kindness towards Delia, which would have been rather humourous without the consideration of how very careful they were going to have to be. None of that seemed to matter at the time though, and neither did the wait for Delia to return to Wales for a while before finally coming _home_. Patsy only had to remind herself of the virtue she was named for when she had grown just the slightest bit agitated around the desire for Delia to arrive at Nonnatus, telling herself just how lucky she was for everything to have come full circle in the way that it had.

It seemed that fate, in its own way, had been on her side recently, particularly when she was called out to a birth that was no doubt going to run into Delia's estimated time of arrival. She didn't trust herself to contain her soppy grin, her utter and unabashed enthusiasm that would reveal itself when she walked through that door. It was probably better that she returned knowing she was there, prepared to control her buzzing nerves, rather than waiting like a loyal dog at the threshold only to loose her marbles when she came in. Still, she hadn't been able to help the tinge of disappointment, but she had waited for this long, and she could wait for however long it took Mrs. Su to deliver her baby. As luck would have it, things didn't take forever, despite it being the young woman's first child, and she was all too happy to leave her in Mrs. Mahoney's very capable hands to bask in the joy that had just entered her life, not for the last time she suspected, by the way her and Mr. Su gazed at each other.

Unpacking with her, flitting around her room, brushing up against each other, _finally_ arranging those flowers in a vase and taking a seat – it felt like the first time she had relaxed in months, and it was. The last time she felt this utterly at ease had been that morning in their flat, waking up early just so they could take their time getting out of bed, shuffling under the sheets, embracing and draping themselves over each other in every possible variation until grumbling stomachs and vocations could wait no longer. And then messing around in the kitchen, flicking dry porridge oats at each other and boiling coffee, hugging Delia from behind while she attended the hob. It wasn't quite the flat here, of course, but it was close – as close as they could get for now.

But that sense of security and contentment was all too short lived, brought to a swift end – as it was every single time – the next time she checked on Mrs. Su. And yet again she was berating herself for thinking that all could be right in the world for just one stupid moment. Dr. Turner had offered her a lift back to Nonnatus house, and she had accepted the offer all too gratefully, knowing that she would be about as stable on her bike as she was in her mind at that moment, dread surging up from the darkest depths of it in tandem with the sick feeling in her stomach. She fiddled with her hands, a little red from the seeing to she'd given them in Mrs. Marney's kitchen sink after sitting with the new mother, unable to erase the image of the poor young woman from her head. She had half a mind to ask the doctor to pull over, lest she throw up, but she clenched her jaw and ordered herself to gain some composure. The doctor seemed to be holding out a little hope that her suspicions were wrong, but she knew typhoid when she saw it, and she thought that he really ought to as well, having worked in the East End for long enough. But then, he must have just seen cases like Mrs. Su's, in time to have them sent straight to hospital, in time to offer them some hope. He hadn't seen it lived out from beginning to end, every waking minute of the day that could be spent by the afflicted's side, in conditions that offered no chance of even a little relief from pain and suffering to ease the inevitability of death. She knew she wasn't wrong about Mrs. Su, and the potential fall out from this was something she couldn't bear to think about.

In that moment she had wanted Delia more than anything in the world, she had wanted to curl up next to the only person who truly knew her, who knew what this meant for her, and to let her run her fingers through her hair and wipe the tears that were begging to fall. She wanted their flat; she wanted privacy, and not the room full of people she'd walked into when she had gone to make tea. Delia had taken in features all too astutely, frowning a little at the sight of her, and she thought that she must be a really picture when it became clear rather quickly that the others had begun to look at her funny too, and then with dread – _if it was Patsy looking like this, if it was Patsy that seemed so shaken, then it must be bad_. So she had told them, and she had watched from the corner of her eye, as she attempted to address everyone in the room equally, the understanding registering in Delia's features, the sorrow in her eyes. There was a certain look behind her mask of reasonably measured objective concern for the situation, one that Patsy knew signaled Delia's desperate need to take her into her arms.

And then she had made everything worse, chasing away the only person who could possibly make her feel anything but completely and utterly bleak in a way that she hadn't done since very early on in their relationship, when they had been friends and she thought she had been protecting the other woman from her perverse affections, or when she had been scared and unused to baring her soul, attempting to claw back some of the vulnerability she had spilled, some of the secrets she'd shared. Had she been reaching for her arm, her hand, her face? She had flinched before she would ever have found out exactly what Delia was trying to do and say, exactly how far she was willing to go to comfort her in that situation, how much she would test the boundaries. What hurt her wasn't what Delia was going to do in front of others, but what she couldn't. Later, she had heeded Trixie's advice, though not before a good amount of time steeling herself.

Delia wouldn't be angry with her – she never was – and she suspected that when it came to this, when it came to having trauma and pain relived in the way it had been today, the other woman wouldn't bat an eyelid even if she reacted in the most bizarre manner she could imagine. But she was still afraid – more afraid because she knew she would have to talk about it, that she owed it to Delia to explain herself, and even with the woman she loved that was always hard. Off the roster as a precaution, she had the chance to get changed out of her uniform, to fix her hair, to retouch her make up where it had smudged as she'd cried alone in her room, though it wouldn't stay in place for all that long. And then she had slipped into Delia's room, backing herself up against the wall, feeling as though her chest would cave in from the invisible pressure on it, and her apology coming out in a way that rather reflected that. But Delia accepted it quickly, graciously, even though she didn't have to, even though she had every right to think her behaviour foul, muttering something about her not being silly and not having to say sorry for such things before welcoming her onto her bed.

Her touch was tentative at first, not eager to shock Patsy into pulling away again, reflecting a respect for her fears, but now they were away from prying eyes she let the other woman draw her closer inch by inch until Delia had pulled her arms around her waist, and her own hands found themselves divided between Patsy's hair and tracing a pattern up her spine, rubbing soothingly as she closed her eyes tight. She used to do that in the camp, squeezing them shut and urging herself to pluck out fading, almost mystical memories of her father, of the big white house, of the seashore, and trying to pretend she was there. But then, there was nowhere she would rather be right now than here with Delia. Besides, that trick might have worked for a while when she was a girl, but it had stopped serving her after a short time in that hell, and it wasn't serving her now. All that appeared behind her eyes were images of her mother and sister, hair plastered to their porcelain faces by sweat, fingers toying endlessly with their sheets, and the moaning and the thrashing that when it began the nurses would scoop her up and drag her protesting from the sick bay, trying to shield her from horrors there were no point in hiding from her by then.

She didn't know how long she cried on Delia for, but they were left well enough alone in any case, so she was allowed to relax into her and she took the opportunity while she had it, not knowing how long the road ahead of her was, not knowing if and how typhoid would take a hold of this community and leave devastation in its wake, including Patsy's, not knowing when she'd next get a chance to let her emotions pour out onto Delia like this. She felt a fool in so many ways. She had hurt Delia so unnecessarily. She was crying on her like it was nobody's business. She had let herself think that things had gone so right for her again – for a period – that she was untouchable. But she was rapidly readjusting the cogs in her mind, replacing the interrupter mechanism that reminded her not to get too comfortable, not to take anything for granted, to think twice before she relaxed for even one moment. There was one thing she knew above all though – the woman who held her in her arms loved her, and after everything they had been through and everything they had suffered to be together, she felt safe enough to count on that.


End file.
